retrospecting on best workday evah

[keryx]

There's a thing in the 5 Dysfunctions of a Team book (a book I'm ambivalent about in general) about how a team actually has to accomplish things together. "Team building" activities are fake and forced - they can band-aid a team that's broken, or they can force team-like behavior on people who are really just working near each other. That I do agree with. The interesting effect of our team CD-making idea is that it actually was, unintentionally, a true team-building activity. It wasn't exactly an accomplishment, but we made something together & got to know each other in the process. The team members who didn't contribute were a little sad after the fact that they hadn't. I included songs for them, though - I don't even know why, it just occurred to me, and they seemed pleased by that. Huh. That's probably a lesson.

This is a cool aspect of letting myself be myself at work. I may get in trouble, but I'd rather do that and be authentic. And the goofy CD idea was just the sort of random thing I'd suggest in any group, not thinking about work.

Also? Our non-engineered retrospective in the morning? Good plan. It felt right to take time to thank our departing team member, and one of the others on the team made him like The Coolest Parting Gift evah (a portable version of the Wednesday afternoon snack cart). Hitting more changes in people as we finished the first iteration where we a) really truly finished things in one sprint [We've tended to hit major changes and approval snags and other things that we accept, perhaps wrongly, and therefore take forever to deliver real value.] and b) made consistent, normal-looking-if-you-see-our-data progress. And the team had some good conversation about our norms, really thinking about what words like "work" and "value" and "bold" mean. I love that they think so much about what they say.

That conversation rolled right into a planning session that made me feel like what I'd been perceiving as a rut might actually be a groove (just a few milimeters difference between the two, really). There's still improvement that can be made - lots of it, especially in the continued transition from individuals performing assigned tasks to a team deciding on how to make something that works. It's a constant transition. Agile is natural, but it's also hard.

I have to go back tomorrow and do the gruelling administrivia that I get to shoulder on their behalf after planning each sprint. The data-gathering part will be good, though. I think it'll tell us more about what we're trying to do this time (looks like more work, with a different team!). We'll see how that goes.

I had some personal anatomy-of-a-good-day stuff, too. Most of my afternoon was checking in with other people (on and off the Agile team), which probably looks like meandering socializing, but is, I swear, deliberate and gentle morale-lifting. For my morale, too. It's amazing what a couple of minutes of knowing that someone else cares how you think and feel will do for your spirits.