Expressing Appreciation: Kudo Cards, Kudo Box, Kudo Wall
One of the great things about feedback of any kind, whether positive, negative, or somewhere in between, is that it gives us something to reflect upon, and potentially learn from. One of the saddest truths I’ve observed is how we often don’t create enough time or space in our workplaces for giving positive feedback, in particular.
In this post, we’ll focus on three techniques I’ve found to be effective as a means of communicating positive feedback. These techniques can be used separately, or in combination:
- Kudo Cards
- Kudo Box
- Kudo Wall
Kudo Cards
You can use a pre-prepared set of Kudo Cards (like the Management 3.0 Kudo Cards), you can make your own, you can use blank cards, or make virtual equivalents of any of these.
Here are some ways that you can use Kudo Cards:
- During an iteration or Sprint, provide team members with an anonymous means of offering Kudos to each other, and then pick a time to share the Kudos. As an interesting variation on this, consider something like Appreciation Post Cards.
- At the beginning or end of a retrospective, use Kudo Cards to serve as tokens of appreciation that team members can give to each other to express their gratitude for a job well done, helping out where needed, or simply being an awesome team mate.
- At the end of a particularly difficult release cycle, or really anything that was particularly challenging where many people were involved to make it happen, use Kudo Cards to celebrate success.
Kudo Box
A Kudo Box works well in conjunction with either Kudo Cards or a Kudo Wall:
- Create a physical or virtual Kudo Box, and ask people to place Kudo Cards in it (the cards can be anonymous, they can be “signed,” or some combination of the two).
- Choose an event during which to reveal the Kudo Cards to the recipients, during an event such as an All-Hands (if collecting cards on a larger scale), or during a smaller gathering.
- Pick one Kudo at a time, at some regular cadence (e.g., weekly), and give it to the recipient. For instance, if it’s a single team participating, offer one Kudo Card to somebody at the end of a Daily Standup.
Kudo Wall
As is the case with the Kudo Box, a Kudo Wall plays nicely with the Kudo Cards and Kudo Box in various ways:
- For collocated teams, find a visible shared wall space, and invite people to put up a Kudo Card on the wall whenever they think of something they want to thank somebody else for
- For collocated or virtual teams, invite people to place Kudo Cards in a physical or virtual box, and choose an event (such one of those listed above) to give out the Kudos, and then put the cards on a visible physical wall or virtual equivalent, to let the happiness live on for a while.
- For a fun variation on a Kudo Wall, think of fun or goofy awards to give out, like the most extravagantly worded Kudo Card, or the Kudo Card with the most expressive art work.
