Agile and the Post-it® note

There used to be a joke that agile was developed by 3M to sell more Post-It® notes. And I must admit, I certainly use those little sticky pieces of paper in all sorts of agile activities: planning, retrospectives, parking lot items, take-aways….

But why?

·         Portability – allows the team to re-arrange as needed for categorization.

·         Multiple writers – who hasn’t spent time watching one person write user stories and/or tasks into Rally or TFS? ‘Nuff said.

·         All voices – everyone can write, so everyone can have a voice, even those who don’t like to talk in groups.

·         Right-sized – a 3x3 Post-It® is really all the size you need for a user story. I used to use the mini-sized ones (2x2) to write my daily list on – anything more just couldn’t get done.

·         Stickiness – well, most of the time. The notes can be transported anywhere, or even gathered up and stuck in a folder for later reference. There are many surfaces where Post-It® notes don’t work as well, but then a little painter’s tape can help!

Are there alternatives?

The “old school” way was using index cards and a bit of painter’s tape to create story and task cards. I recall using larger index cards for the stories, and matching the colors for the associated task cards. Painter’s tape, magnets or pushpins could be used to attach these cards to the appropriate walls.

One tool that I have found useful when working with distributed teams is Google Drive/Docs. This is especially useful when you’re in an environment where laptops are ALWAYS present. Everyone around that conference table has their laptop out, and can very easily add their notes to a shared Google document. The folks working remotely have equal access, without any additional steps to be heard. And it’s fun to figure out who’s the “anonymous wallaby!”

As a bit of a tangent, a cube of mini stickies and a file folder are a quick and easy way to make a personal Kanban or scrum board.

Stories, poker, and funny money

Have you ever noticed that, along with big visible charts and frequent communications, agile teams tend to HAVE FUN?

Playfulness and creativity go hand in hand with productivity and motivation. So of course there are lots of activities within the agile world that aren’t boring, run-of-the-mill meetings and stodgy workdays. 

User stories – We’re all pretty familiar with the concept of user stories. But maybe the next time the product owner is introducing a new set of stories to the team, call the meeting “story time” and serve cookies and milk.

Planning poker – How many of you get to say that you play poker at work?! Okay, so it’s planning poker, used to estimate level of effort on deliverables, but still… I think planning meetings are more light-hearted simply because of the cards (physical or electronic).

Team and other names – I’ve been on teams named The Simpsons and NCC-1701-D. I’ve worked with teams named after cars. I’ve used colors, Simpsons character names, and extinct or near extinct animals for iteration names (who can talk about the Dodo iteration without breaking into a grin?!). And while second or third attempts to release the same code may not be fun, I can now kind of laugh about release 56.5. Then there’s the Platypus project…

 

Buy-a-Feature – Product owners can even enjoy the fun! The next time your team of product owners and/or stakeholders can’t agree which deliverable takes priority, have them play “buy a feature” with funny money – either monopoly cash or scrip you create on your computer with pictures or the CEO, CIO, and CFO in place of presidents. More information is available on Innovation Games.

Food – Sweets and fun just seem to go together. And while I know it’s important to watch caloric intake, red vines, cookies, and mini-chocolate bars will add a certain amount of levity to any gathering.  A big bunch of grapes or cuties (those little, easy-to-peel oranges) are also great options.  

How else do you have fun at work? What brings levity and helps creativity flow?