Two months ago I started a new job. I left nice old colleagues and got nice new colleagues. The companies are the same size. No big diff there. But there is a very visible difference in the respective offices: Old workplace: 200 square metres of whiteboard surface + glass walls – all of them covered …
Category Archives: Self-Organization
Na na na na na na na na Bug Slot!
<Sing title to the melody of the batman theme song> In the company I just left we had a weekly bugslot to stay on top of defects: 2 hours every week during which all developers fixed bugs at the same time. It’s not a perfect solution but solved a number of pressing problems: Discouragingly high …
Want Change? Make “your” way the easiest way
If you want to establish new ways to do things (i.e. processes), make sure that this new way is the easiest route for people to reach their goal. If the old way is easier, the new one won’t ever be adopted. Example: There is a new way to handle support, designed to let the developers …
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Systemic Consensus
You know that saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”? Well, I usually do jugde a book by its cover and I’d never have bought “Systemisches KONSENSIEREN” (“Systemic CONSENSUS”)! When a colleague dropped it on desk, I made fun of it – its whole appearance is “touchy-feely” in a bad way and, come on, …
Getting things done: Daily goals
Searching for ways to stay more focused on the stories, several of our teams use the following trick: Each morning during standup they set themselves a daily goal. In some teams these goals are for the whole team, in others each team member sets a goal for themselves (or pairs). Either way works fine for …
Places for information radiators
Big visible charts are a great way to convey information. The more visible something is, the less likely you are to forget or disregard it. This week we tried a new location, when we needed additional maintainers for a handful of systems: Right next to the rest rooms (the door slightly ajar is the Gents). …
Distributing Support in Scrum
Wanna know how we distribute support tickets between developers / scrum teams? I’ll first describe an approach that didn’t work, followed by one that works for us (and Immobilienscout24, because we totally copied it from them).
Eliminate Waste: Caretaker of the Week
Apparently I’m stuck on the topic of decisions, but whereas the last post was about manifesting decisions, this one is about avoiding them. Well, at least a certain kind of decisions: The kind where teams need to do something regularly, but it doesn’t matter which team member does it, as long as it gets done. …
“Was that a Decision?”
That awkward moment, when you ask “Shall we try that?” and the most response you get is mumbling… You’re not quite sure what to make of it. It usually means that nobody is opposed to the idea, but does anyone want it? So you end up hanging in the air with a non-decision and just …