The importance of Rituals
In the Agile methodology, we have rituals, and they are incredible important. They help us realize the importance of the work we’re doing, through recurrent meetings, talking about how we’re feeling about our work, planning ahead, and also, showing off our improvements. I think that the main reason such rituals are important is because they help us see where we’re standing right now, where we started, and where we want to be.
The most frequent ritual is called “daily stand-up.” They’re 15-minute long meetings, in which each team member goes through what they’ve been working on on the project, and if they need any help with a blocker. When we first started as Chipocludos, we really had daily stand-ups. We saw each other (even though we’re in different offices and cities), every-single-day, for about 20 minutes and tried to figure out how to actually run a standup; the first couple of sprints we had a really hard time having them for only 15 minutes, and having everyone join on time. Daily stand-ups have been incredibly helpful throughout the project, because they have formed our work as a team; once we realized it was very difficult to have everyone at the same time every day, we discussed the possibility of having our stand-ups every other day and … IT IS WORKING. Instead of not having the entire team on daily stand-ups, we focus on being there, and contributing insights of value.
The next important ritual is the retrospective. This is an hour-long(ish) meeting in which we get together and talk about what we enjoyed doing, what we need to stop doing as a team, and what we need to start doing. Retrospectives are important because we get to go over what’s been done, and very important, how we’re feeling about the project. As an Agile team, as Chipocludos, we understand that is critical to the outcome of the project that we’re excited and having fun while working on the project. Because of this, we always find a way to have some fun and laugh during the stand-ups and retrospectives. And as our Coach has always taught us “If we’re not having fun while working on Agile, we’re not doing it right.”
And last but not least, we have our Sprint Planning sessions. During this session, we talk as a team about the things we’re sure we can deliver in the next sprint, how many points we’re willing to compromise, and the quality of the work we will be doing (quality, not quantity). Personally, I think planning is one of the hardest rituals, because it really forces us to discuss our current workload, and how we’ll be moving forward with the project and the rest of the stories.
This are our sprintly rituals. And these are helping us succeed as a team.
