Transforming our ways of working

Prologue: It’s been a while: we haven’t met our friends, families, or even neighbors in-person for the last few weeks, and the credit goes to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are all going through such a strange situation, for the first time in our lifetime. We are worried about our jobs, our family’s health and safety, and most importantly, we are feeling less connected. Now, more than ever, we need to discover new ways of working that keep us motivated and connected. As they say, “Necessity is the mother of invention💡.”

Day 1: Our scrum team in India visualized an experiment 🔬on its ways of working (WoW), inspired by Agile Swarming (collective work) and pair-programming technique, with a focus on improving trust-building, engagement and delivery-quality.

Day 2, Good morning: The team discussed and decided a new way of working with specific ground rules:

1. Initiate a day-long swarming call daily in the morning
2. Priority to swarm on stories wherever possible
3. Team members to join/drop call on-demand as necessary
4. Anyone can ask any question anytime; anyone can answer the questions
5. Follow a common language (English)
6. No formal etiquette of call necessary

Day 2, Good afternoon: The entire development team participated in swarming.

Day 2, Call it a day: The team demonstrated great collaboration and engagement 👬👬👬. We were able to share immediate feedback on solution strategy, thought process and code.

Day 3: Swarming transformed into a huddle room where developers brought their problems for collective problem-solving, review and knowledge-sharing.

Day 3, Call it a day: To our pleasant surprise, we found ourselves in a continuous knowledge-sharing and collective problem-solving mode.

Day 4: Repeat day 3!

Day 5, Good morning: Nothing to work on! We achieved increased productivity — sprint goals achieved before the end of the sprint.

Chit-Chat

Here is what the team members have to say about our new WoW:

👨 Razeel (Engineer)

Swarming helped me to accomplish assigned tasks much faster and encouraged me to think beyond the expectation by solving blockers.

👨 Harshit (Engineer)

The perfect way for collaborative work wherein we achieve more than the expected output with just one screen at a time, and the full team works towards a common goal to complete the objective. Several advantages like:

• The best solution developed without the need for several rounds of reviews.
• Junior team members get to learn from everyone leading to best grooming.
• No KT required as everyone is aware of all stories.
• Excellent team communication with transparency.

👨 Harshang (Engineer)

Joined the team on Day 1 of lockdown, swarming helped me in establishing a connection with the team, which was missing earlier due to WFH/virtual environment.

👨 Sai Arvind (Engineer)

Helps to solve any blocker immediately and get instant help as and when required just like working in the office. This helps us stay connected just like in the office.

👨 Ritik (Engineer)

Illuminates the idea of Team as an Organism. If something is not done, it’s just not completed by one person, but by the whole team. It also adds the taste of every story in your knowledge recipe. Happy environment. Makes life-span of errors short. Personally, a considerable gain in knowledge in just one sprint.

Epilogue:

• Swarm with quality engineers.
• Swarm with our fellow team members on the other side of the ocean.