Goals are what drive us and create a path to our success. Many of us have a big goal in mind that guides us. But one big goal can be overwhelming: how do we decide on the smaller parts and day-to-day actions that will help us achieve it?
In this webinar, goal-setting experts Regina Martins and Birge Kahraman introduce you to the concept of OKRs, or Objectives and Key Results. They show you how to break your big, ambitious goals down into small, achievable, and clear steps. They outline how you can write action-orientated and strong objectives as well as impactful key results. Together, they explore how Agile teams can use OKRs, and how we can connect them to our business goals.
agile42 is a world leader is Scrum training. There are hundreds of training providers all across the globe, so what is it about agile42’s methods that keeps professionals coming back to us? We use scientific teaching methods and practices, including techniques from Accelerated Learning and in particular principles and concepts from Training from the Back of the Room.research has shown that students retain information better using these methods, and that conceptual understanding is deeper. In our training, we focus on the learners and not on the content, and we adapt our approach to each student’s specific needs and talents. The main points are covered, but we use different techniques and existing class knowledge to dive deeper into the concepts, which results in a dynamic agendathat aligns with the class’s specific interests.
Our Scrum courses are dynamic, designed for deeper practical understanding of new skills, and tailored for the individuals in the class. Sure, you’ll pass your exam. But you’ll also walk away with a greater depth of knowledge and understanding that will empower you when taking the next steps in your career.
Online Scrum Certifications
The agile42 training method has always been defined by interactive Scrum games, group work, and many, many post-its. But as our world changed and shifted due to the Covid-19 pandemic, we had to revise our training model. We didn’t want to fall into the trap of the formulaic video call, with a sequence of slides that flash across the screen while half the attendees are either dozing or distracted. We wanted to design training that kept the interactive, engaging agile42 style. This is how we devised our new training model: that of the “virtual class” with strong doses of interactivity and group activities thanks to the use of Zoom “breakout rooms”, beautiful Miro boards, virtual games, and a Slack channel that is available to the participants before, during, and after the course. Almost all of our Scrum training is available online.
Other Agile Certifications in 2023
agile42 also offers Italian Scrum training, as well as online Agile certifications, Kanban training with certification from Kanban University, ICAgile Agile Team Facilitation (ICP-ATF) and Agile Coaching Certification (ICP-ACC) training, and the new edition of the Scrum Alliance Certified Agile Leadership combined with the ORGANIC agility Foundations course.
If none of these dates, times, or languages suit you, reach out to us and we’ll let you know if we’re able to offer ad-hoc training to you and your team. Contact us for further information and questions, and to access the discounts reserved for companies.
Every year, as we approach the year-end, our coaches find themselves having more conversations about burnout. It’s a concept we’ve been hearing about for decades, so why is it still such a big problem?
In this webinar, Regina Martins and Pascal Papathemelis tackle this concept. They share their personal experiences to cover why burnout happens and how we can spot the signs in both ourselves and others. They also explore some long-term sustainable solutions to this problem, and the roles that coaches and leaders in organizations play to prevent burnout from happening in the first place.
Only those who are able to react in a flexible way to market changes can operate and grow sustainably in the long term: resilience is the key. With the right methods and tools, any organization can evaluate its status quo and gain insight into its resilience.
Every company is a complex and organic construct. It is the sum of all employees, their managers, and the underlying processes and decisions they make. The theory goes that the stronger the consensus behind these decisions and processes, the stronger the organization itself. A company can be compared to a tree: the stronger the trunk and branches, the more resistant it is to external influences. In other words: the stronger the core message and process structures of a company, the stronger the organization.
Culture As a Cornerstone
In order to ensure a stable organization, a culture that is lived by everyone must prevail – the trunk, so to speak, to stay with the analogy of the tree. Understanding your own corporate culture is important in order to make sustainable changes, healthy growth and innovation possible in the first place.
Ideally, every single employee in the company must support and actively shape changes. For this it is important to know exactly what the status quo is.
It’s All About Understanding Your True Status Quo
But how do you get a really honest, unbiased picture of the status quo, especially when it comes to values that are intangible, such as culture, management style or employee satisfaction? agile42 has set itself the task of making this data, which is so difficult to collect, visible. Once you can measure it, you can use it as a basis for the transformation processes to increase resilience in the long term. With our Organizational Scan™ we have created a product especially for this.
The OrgScan™: More Than an Ordinary Survey
Culture can be made visible through data, using the Organizational Scan™. It’s one of the Organic Agility Strategic Tools and provides real data on corporate culture, leadership styles, decision-making skills and the values that are lived in the company. The OrgScan™ uses the patented SenseMaker® technology, which generates unbiased results through completely anonymous data collection in the form of micronarratives, which are not impacted by subjective moods or personal situations.
“High acceptance, facts instead of gut feeling”
“It was important for us – especially with regard to our corporate culture – to have a data-based classification that consists of the unfiltered view of our employees,” reports Christina Kiehl, Chief Finance & Operations Officer at Congstar. “Over 400 stories were submitted, which were analyzed in different dimensions. The advantages of the process: high acceptance, facts instead of gut feelings, the opportunity to further develop our corporate culture in a targeted manner and also to measure it. Our conclusion: Clear recommendation for the use of the OrgScan™.”
Hybrid work refers to a flexible model of working that allows employees to work from various locations and often includes remote work. In the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, more and more companies are embracing hybrid working models. According to the Accenture Future of Work Study 2021, 83% of workers prefer a hybrid work model. While there may be a number of challenges, there are also plenty of benefits to hybrid work. Here are seven ways that hybrid work can benefit your company and your team.
For companies, one of the most obvious benefits of hybrid work is it allows them to reduce costs. The reduced need for physical space allows companies to rent out smaller office spaces, use co-working spaces, or even just hire out conference rooms when it is necessary. Companies also typically spend less money on running costs such as electricity and water, as well as sundry expenses like coffee and meals.
Hybrid and remote work also benefit employees financially as they spend less money commuting. People are also less tempted to buy that extra cappuccino or sandwich at their local cafe, meaning they are spending less money on a day-to-day basis and can choose to cook a wholesome meal at home instead. With the rising costs of fuel and living, these are very compelling reasons to stay at home!
An increase in efficiency
While productivity and efficiency are interdependent, they are not the same thing. Productivity is the amount of work produced by an individual or team, while efficacy refers to the resources we used to produce that work.
One of the biggest benefits of hybrid work is that people can be more efficient, especially when it comes to time. If you work from home, you cut back on the time it takes to commute to work. Furthermore, it allows you to manage your work around times that suit you and when you are most productive. You can choose your peak hours around when you want to complete your more complex tasks.
A better work-life balance
Most people think that hybrid work promotes a better work-life balance but this is not necessarily true. Digital exhaustion and working after hours has become a reality for people in hybrid and remote work environments. In a case study by Harvard Business Review, Microsoft reported that weekly time in team meetings doubled, and the average person sends 42% more instant messages after hours.
To overcome this digital overload and create a better work-life balance, we need good leadership. Hybrid work can promote a better work-life balance if leaders have put the right structures, rules of engagement, and priorities in place. For example, leaders need to focus on managing the flow of work (not people), building autonomy and trust in teams, and leading based on context, which is different for every team. If leaders can create a good working environment, it empowers people to make good decisions and increase their job satisfaction.
Improved health outcomes
The rise of hybrid work in the previous few years is a direct result of health concerns. Communicable diseases are spread through people, and working from home prevents outbreaks of disease in the office.
When working from home, people feel more relaxed and comfortable in a familiar environment. Plus, they do not have to deal with the stresses of a daily commute, like traffic jams or being in close proximity to people on a train. Instead, people can use this time to walk or engage in an activity to help them into the right frame of mind before their day begins. If employees unplug after work hours, they can have more time in the evening to cook and get to bed earlier. All these factors have a significant impact on our physical health and help us to reduce stress.
A study by Tracking Happiness, showed that the ability to work from home increased happiness by 20%,and this is especially true for millennials, who make up a large portion of today’s workforce. A side-effect of working in a hybrid or remote setting is that it offers people more flexibility and freedom to better integrate their personal and professional lives. And if people can spend more time exercising, meditating, travelling, or working on their relationships outside of work, it can result in higher levels of happiness.
As employees spend fewer days commuting, there’s a corresponding drop in emissions. A study by Forbes shows that the average commuting time in the UK is 1 hour and 38 minutes, much of which will be spent in a car, and the average petrol car in the UK produces around 180g of CO2 per kilometer. In the United States, larger vehicles produce an average of 650g of CO2 per kilometer. You can see how this all adds up, and reducing commuting can have a very positive impact on the environment. Offices are also using less electricity and water, meaning that they are reducing their carbon footprint too.
However, there are other factors to consider when working remotely. Hybrid work has led to a surge in video calls that emit greenhouse gasses. And while companies may be reducing their carbon footprints with fewer people in office, individuals can end up using a lot of energy to create the ideal working conditions at home by using their air conditioners, heating, or cooking appliances. Working from home has a lot of potential to reduce the carbon footprint, but a lot of responsibility still lies on both individuals and companies to do their part.
It is becoming clear that companies that want to attract talent need to offer people more flexibility and freedom to work where they want. Remote and hybrid jobs are attracting seven times more applicants than in-person roles.
Hybrid work also enables companies to find the right person for the job that does not depend on their location but rather their skillset. More accessible workplaces also reduce barriers for those with health issues and disabilities, resulting in more diverse and more inclusive workplaces. This makes it possible to find and accommodate the best possible talent for the role. Digital transformations have also helped with this move as people can connect with each other from around the world and use a wide range of virtual tools to work together and collaborate.
Need help establishing effective hybrid work arrangements?
There are a lot of benefits to hybrid work, and a lot of people are favoring this way of working for many of the reasons that we have mentioned. If you or any of your teams need help with how to make hybrid work more enjoyable and productive, please get in touch at [email protected] or read our 42 expert tips for hybrid and remote work.
In software development, technical debt is a concept that reflects the extra development work that arises when we use quick or easy solutions. But the concept is useful beyond the world of software too. In the digital world, where new technologies and ideas are emerging just about every day, technical debt is almost unavoidable. So we need to know how to deal with it.
In our fast-moving world, customers expect fast results and priorities are constantly changing. Therefore, companies must be able to respond and adapt quickly.
In the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, my favorite piece of cake inspired me to tell the story of a confectionery shop that was urged to change their product portfolio due to market changes. As I use this story very often to introduce Kanban principles and practices in training and coaching sessions, I also want to share it here.
Grab a piece of cake and read how Kanban principles and practices can be applied to initiate and manage change effectively.
The inventor of the Kanban method, David J. Anderson, was on holiday in Japan in spring 2005. Spring is the time of cherry blossom, so he went to see the cherry blossoms in the gardens of the Imperial Palace. Many other people wanted to do the same and there were long queues.
To manage the flow of the crowds, each visitor was given a ticket. If there were no more tickets, admission was paused until another visitor had left the garden. Access to a scarce resource – the garden – was managed by limiting the capacity – the tickets. The presence or absence of a card was the signal whether there was capacity or not. This was a kanban system. The Japanese word “kanban” means “visible signal”.
By using Kanban, a company develops the capability to respond better and faster to changing customer needs and expectations.
We can apply Kanban everywhere in a company where we provide a service and in any situation where people and processes are involved. Kanban is neither a methodology nor a framework. In contrast to Scrum, it does not prescribe events, workflows, roles or responsibilities. Rather, it is a method that is applied to an existing way of working, with the purpose of making that way of working more effective. With that, it is much more than just a board full of sticky notes.
The Kanban method takes inspiration from lean manufacturing in many aspects and was designed for knowledge work. Kanban is not limited to specific industries, products or services and also does not require specific roles, events or practices.
Using Kanban for change management
A friend of mine works for a confectionary shop that sells cakes and a few other bakery goods. She is an expert in producing and decorating cakes for weddings and other celebrations. The shop is a small family-owned business with a stable number of b2b and b2c customers who used to order cakes regularly.
When COVID-19 hit, the market environment changed drastically: The customers came less frequently and the bakery store’s hygiene measures needed to be adapted in order to meet new requirements. This affected the production. Also, the customers demanded more bakery goods instead of cakes. Bread had been sold out several weeks in a row and the bakery realized that they needed to change their product portfolio. To address the change, they took several actions.
When I first heard about their change, I was preparing for a Kanban workshop, looking for an example of how to apply Kanban principles and practices. Because I like cake and think most of their measures relate perfectly to Kanban, a cake-inspired version of the Kanban principles and practices follows:
The six principles of Kanban
Start with what you do now
The team of the confectionery shop was already experienced with baking one type of bread. They used their existing knowledge and capabilities to change their product portfolio from cakes to bread: They simply took their bread recipe and produced more bread of that type. They built on top of what they already did instead of planning a big change, which allowed them to start on the same day and learn fast.
When uncertainty is high, the first step of a change is not always clear. We counter this by building on what is already there.
The first principle of Kanban says: Start with what you are already doing.
Pursue evolutionary change
As the confectionery shop did not want to do a big bang change, they analyzed what they could add to the basic recipe in order to further improve in small steps. So they decided to add some special grains and seeds to their bread, in order to create variations. The customers liked it and some of them also provided feedback on the new products. Some preferred smaller sized breads, for example.
With that, they approached new things in many small steps and learned from their experiences. This is easier to implement than introducing big changes overnight – only to realize at the end that another way would have been better.
The second Kanban principle says: Agree to pursue evolutionary change.
Encourage leadership at all levels
The change in their product portfolio triggered some adaptations in how the team of the confectionery shop works together during the day and how they manage their work. Because team members know best what needs to be changed in production, they encouraged everyone to bring in their ideas and knowledge. Together they owned the process of inspecting and adapting continuously. This led to several actions like transforming their café area into a second production room and adjusting their worktimes.
Change happens when it is initiated and accompanied by someone. When we start with what we are already doing and manage change in many small steps, this does not only concern leadership roles in the organization. Often small or supposedly insignificant observations and suggestions for improvement come from people with no formal leadership roles. After all, through their daily operational work, they know very well what changes can make an impact.
The third Kanban principle relates to that: Encourage leadership at all levels.
Understand customers’ needs
The team used statistics to learn and understand what their customers needed and adjusted to those. They found out that they didn’t sell any cake but three types of bread instead. They also noticed that on Mondays there were fewer customers than on Fridays. Based on this data, they managed their purchasing of ingredients accordingly and were able to reduce waste.
Clients judge services on the basis of various criteria. If a team fulfills them, this leads to satisfaction. So if a team understands their customers better, they can think about their work system from the customers’ point of view and focus on the customers’ needs.
This is what the fourth Kanban principle addresses: Understand the needs and expectations of customers and focus on them.
Manage the work, not the people
Working times and workflow steps changed as the business offered different products and more variation. It became very important to prioritize work and ensure that the system of work is effective rather than ensuring that all team members were utilized.
The team knew best what they needed to do to manage and organize bread production, so the owner of the shop let them self-organize around that work. The shop owner established a pull system and created an environment where people felt safe and motivated to organize themselves and produce value (bread).
The fifth Kanban principle says: Manage the work and let people organize themselves around the work.
Control service delivery through policies
With offering more variations and other types of products, the team agreed on how “type 1” bread should look like to meet their quality standards. They also defined what needed to be done in each workflow step.
Offering new types of bread required change. They had to continuously develop their offering and rules for collaboration. Continuous inspection and adaptation was needed to ensure sustainable results.
The sixth principle says: Control service delivery through policies.
When change is needed, Kanban’s first three principles provide guidance on how to manage change.
Kanban’s first principle relates to the introduction of change. It says: Start with what you are already doing. Approaching new things and learning from the experiences with them is related to an evolutionary approach that is covered by the second principle: pursue evolutionary change. The third principle relates to promoting responsible action in every individual (encourage leadership at all levels).
This is why the first three principles are also called change management principles. The remaining three principles are focused on service delivery and are therefore called service delivery principles.
Kanban core practices
Make work visible
The team followed specific practices that helped them to produce good results. For example, they supported the purchasing and production by visualizing the number of orders from previous days so that everybody was aware of the development and could adjust accordingly. They also reorganized the workspace in a way that allowed them to see what others were doing, which led to better alignment during production and less bottlenecks.
If, for example, too much dough was prepared but not processed further, they were now able to see that the dough was piling up. Waste was also noticeable: Dropped toppings on the floor couldn’t be processed further and also posed the risk of an accident if someone slipped on them.
These visible signs were discussed and the team initiated measures for optimization. Visualizing work and the flow of work allows us to absorb and process a lot of information in a short time. Because everyone involved has the same picture, visualization supports collaboration and helps make better decisions. Visual signals show us when we need to act or where problems occur.
In contrast to the construction of physical products, the inventory is not visible in knowledge work. It’s more difficult to recognize queues or blocked work. A Kanban board can make work visible in this case.
The columns represent the flow of work, from the first step to the delivery of customer value. The work flows through the system and is visualized by means of maps. This allows us to see at a glance where any bottlenecks and overloads occur. Colors and shapes can also be used to additionally visualize different states such as blocked or very urgent work.
Limit work in progress
The confectionery shop only had three ovens, which was enough for producing cakes but not enough for the demand of bread. They needed to limit the work in progress of bread to avoid long waiting times, which would have resulted in quality issues and waste.
Work in progress refers to the number of tasks that are in progress at any given time. Kanban provides an effective work system with focus on the flow of work rather than on the utilization of employees. When resources are fully utilized, there is no idle time in the system and the result is poor flow, just like rush hour traffic on the highway.
In knowledge work, we also encounter the problem of context switching, which can drastically reduce effectiveness. Perhaps you know this: you are editing a text document and a colleague calls. You are pulled out of your thoughts and need a moment after the phone call until you can continue where you left off.
In Kanban, we therefore limit parallel work in order to balance the workload and ensure an even flow of work.
Manage the flow of work
The team was continuously producing bread as they noticed that much time and effort was needed during production – more than they had assumed. Therefore, they decided to measure the time needed for each step in production. After a few weeks, the numbers indicated a bottleneck in transporting the unfinished loaves to the ovens. By reducing transport times and adapting the way of working in the team a bit, they enabled an even flow of work that also had positive effects on an even utilization of the ovens.
The goal of managing the flow of work is to get the job done as smoothly and predictably as possible while maintaining a steady pace. It aims to create value for customers quickly and sustainably.
Limiting parallel work is one of the most important measures in Kanban that helps us to ensure a smooth and predictable flow. To achieve this, we need to monitor and measure the flow of work. This provides us with data that can be used for expectation management, forecasting and improvement.
Make policies explicit
The team made many decisions about the organization of work and how work was done. This referred, for example, to how new work – i.e. orders from customers – entered the system. The definition of when a task is completed and another colleague takes over was clear to everyone involved. Other examples of explicit agreements related to limiting parallel work, guidelines for dealing with tasks of different priority or meeting times.
Everyone involved agreed on policies, including clients, stakeholders and colleagues responsible for the work. In order to keep track of the agreements, the team made them visible and accessible. For example, they printed a checklist that made explicit how to leave the workplace at the end of the day.
A team agreement is a good way to introduce such guidelines at team level. As with all other building blocks of the system, policies need to be reviewed and adapted regularly. Guidelines are not work instructions that describe how work should be done in detail. Setting explicit rules is meant to enable self-organization.
Implement feedback loops
The change in the confectionery shop’s work required regular conversations. To ensure a constant cycle of inspection and adaptation, they provided feedback regularly. They ritualized it by having a short conversation every week for one hour where they discussed numbers, processes, communication and how to improve.
Feedback loops are necessary for coordinated delivery, to improve service delivery and prevent a negative impact on customer satisfaction. The conversations can include sharing relevant information, talking about observations and possible adjustments or planning the strategy for the next quarter.
Kanban refers to feedback loops in the form of meetings as cadences. Feedback loops increase the organization’s ability to learn because they provide a framework for regular inspection and adaptation. Feedback loops can also help to conduct small-scale experiments and learn from them through regular reflection.
Improve collaboratively, evolve experimentally
In the first weekly meeting, the team decided to experiment with a new type of special bread as one team member had some experience with it from their previous job. They got together to plan how they were going to try the new recipe. Then, they offered the product for two weeks to learn how customers responded to it and what they needed to change in production.
The last of the six Kanban practices takes us back to the principles: “Start with what you are already doing” and “Agree to pursue evolutionary change”. Kanban is a method for continuous improvement that we do collaboratively. A diverse team usually comes up with better solutions than a single person. This is partly because different perspectives are taken into account and advantages and disadvantages are recognized earlier.
Conclusion
As a method that is applied to an existing way of working, Kanban embraces change by fostering evolution and learning in small steps while focusing on customers’ needs. With that, Kanban can be used for managing change in many contexts.
By the way, the confectionary shop team successfully transformed their product portfolio and improved their way of working significantly. They still inspect and adapt every day and currently offer 50% cakes and 50% bakery goods.
Kanban certifications
If you want to learn more about Kanban, agile42 offers an array of Kanban certifications. Learn the basics in our online Kanban course, or dive a little deeper with Kanban System Design (KMP I) certification. If you already have the basics down and want to take your expertise to the next level, Kanban Systems Improvement (KMP II) is for you.
During the last few decades, several approaches to product development and service delivery have emerged. The level of complexity of products and services is ever-increasing which is why many people wonder which framework or method to choose. Perhaps you are also wondering which framework or method will work best for your team. Below we summarize the key elements of four main agile frameworks and methods, some differences between them, and how they can complement one another.
Scrum
Scrum is a lightweight framework that helps teams and organizations deliver value incrementally.
The Scrum framework consists of the Scrum team with its three accountabilities, five Scrum events, and three artifacts. Each component serves a specific purpose and is important for Scrum’s successful adoption.
The easiest way to understand Scrum is to read the Scrum Guide. There are three main things that you should realize:
As an agile framework, Scrum has rigid boundaries. These are the specific team accountabilities, events and artifacts. Agile frameworks are intentionally incomplete and do not specify all the steps required to build and deliver a product or service. This provides the flexibility and freedom to apply the framework to various domains.
Scrum attaches particular importance to the cross-functional Scrum team and the accountabilities defined for the Developers, Scrum Master and Product Owner. Said accountabilities include maximizing customer value, improving team effectiveness and increasing product quality, among others.
Another key element of Scrum is the continuous improvement of the product, the team, its practices, and the working environment. This improvement typically happens but is not limited to regular sprint retrospectives. Retrospectives are arguably the most important event within the Scrum framework and should never be neglected.
Contrary to popular belief, Scrum is not an approach to estimate and plan what work will be completed in a given time period. Scrum allows teams to create value for their customers and users by letting them focus on one sprint goal at a time, while continuously getting better.
Nowadays, XP is not used as much as it was in the late 1990s and early 2000s. However, XP, its creator Kent Beck and other people like Ron Jeffries played a crucial role in the development of agile thinking and agile approaches. Therefore we would like to include XP in this list as well.
As the name suggests, Extreme Programming has its roots in software development. The core idea of XP is to develop software iteratively and incrementally while focussing on users’ needs. As such, it is an agile framework that is comparable to Scrum.
While there are many similarities between XP and Scrum, there are also subtle differences. For instance:
Iterations in XP tend to be shorter compared to sprints in Scrum.
Scrum teams typically avoid changes to their sprint plans while XP teams are more open to change.
The work of an XP team is prioritized by the customer while the work of a Scrum team is prioritized by their Product Owner.
The most important and noticeable difference, however, is that XP explicitly suggests development practices such as the following:
User stories
Spikes
Pair programming
Test-driven development
Refactoring
Continuous integration
These development practices are still being embraced by many software development teams, regardless which agile framework or method they adopt.
The Kanban method helps organizations, teams and individuals manage their professional services, and enables them to respond better and faster to their customers’ needs and expectations.
The principles and practices of the Kanban method are described in the official Kanban Guide. Here are three important things to understand about Kanban:
Kanban is neither a methodology nor a framework. It does not prescribe events, workflows, roles or responsibilities. Rather, it is a method that is applied to an existing way of working, with the purpose of making that way of working more effective.
The myth around Kanban only being suitable for teams that are handling interrupt-driven, ad-hoc workload is unfounded. The Kanban method, with its change management and service delivery principles and its six core practices, can be applied to any process or system.
In many aspects, Kanban takes inspiration from lean manufacturing.
In his book “Kanban: Successful Evolutionary Change for Your Technology Business”, the creator of the Kanban method David J. Anderson, tells the story of his trip to Tokyo, in spring 2005. Spring is the cherry blossom season in Japan and he wanted to see the beautiful cherry trees at the Imperial Palace Gardens. There he realized they were using a kanban system to control how many people could visit the garden during peak times of the day. This kanban system, as used in lean manufacturing, inspired the Kanban method for knowledge work.
In knowledge work, a kanban system allows work to flow by limiting work in progress and establishing a pull system. With the Kanban method, you visualize invisible work and how it moves through a workflow. This will help operate your business effectively, as well as understand and manage risks in delivering services to your customers. The Kanban method enables continuous improvement in an evolutionary way.
Because Kanban is almost universally applicable, many Scrum or XP teams use Kanban to improve their way of working, for instance by visualizing their work or optimizing their delivery. Some people call this a hybrid approach and give it a specific name such as “Scrumban”.
Even though Design Thinking is not really considered an agile framework or method, its principles and practices are popular among agile teams and organizations and complement their toolbox. For instance, the persona is a widely used tool.
Design Thinking emerged much earlier than Scrum, XP or Kanban as it is based on the way designers approach new projects or products in general. Design Thinking has been developed by a number of different organizations (e.g. IDEO, HPI, Dark Horse) that follow slightly different approaches and theories. However, together they define what Design Thinking is.
Here are some important facts about Design Thinking:
Design Thinking fosters creativity by utilizing a large toolbox of practices, tools and techniques.
The core idea of Design Thinking is to understand the environment and the customer’s problem before building a solution. Design Thinking is based on continuous divergence and convergence.
Teams applying Design Thinking try to validate an idea for a solution by testing prototypes and iterating multiple times.
A major breakthrough was Jake Knapp’s book Sprint. Design sprints provide a structure that allows teams to prepare themselves for a challenge and solve it by going through all phases of Design Thinking within five days.
We often see teams asking themselves whether they should use one framework, method, approach or another in order to deliver outstanding value to their customers.
The reality is that you shouldn’t choose between Scrum, Kanban, XP, Design Thinking or others; rather, you should discover which practices work best for your team and tweak the system of work accordingly. By tweaking, we mean combining those elements that work best for your team in order to plan, track and manage your work more efficiently so that you satisfy your customers’ needs better and faster.
Ask yourself how work arrives at your team, and how often that work and the information around it changes. The answers could guide you in choosing a paradigm that suits you. You might find that a timeboxed mechanism or limiting your work in progress will help. Can you plan your work and commit to it for one or two weeks?
Scrum, Kanban, XP and Design Thinking aren’t mutually exclusive and complement each other when combined. The bigger challenge that lies ahead for teams is the journey of discovering which practices and structures work best for them in satisfying their customers’ needs in a sustainable and ever-growing way.
Every team, every product and every customer is different. There is no one-size-fits-all approach. By keeping an eye on what agility might offer beyond the methods, frameworks or tools you are already using, by trying out new things and hence continuously inspecting and adapting your system of work, you will eventually find what fulfills your team’s and customers’ needs best.
We hope this blog post made you curious about the idea of an agile mix-and-match approach and encourage you to find the best practices for your team right away:
Do you like the idea of having a Scrum Master? Try it out!
Pair programming sounds interesting? Go for it!
The concept of work in progress limits convinces you? Implement them!
Design sprints sound exciting? Just do it!
Want to Learn More About These Agile Frameworks and Methods?
There are two activities in my life that have filled the years with a roller coaster ride of celebration and depression – periods where I had to rely on grit and determination slogging through unending drudgery punctuated with moments of delight – developing software products and playing Dark Souls.
I realize that not everyone who reads this blog may be familiar with the Dark Souls games. Luckily, I can sum it up with one image – the screen that players see more than any other:
Dark Souls has a reputation as a brutally challenging game. As I start playing Elden Ring, the latest game in the series, I’ve been thinking about what I’ve learned playing these games and how similar it is to Agile product development. Below are four of the things I’ve learned about Agile Product Development from Dark Souls.
1. It’s All About Learning From Your Mistakes
While Dark Souls may be unforgiving, it’s not a particularly complex game. Even the most challenging enemies have big tells for their attacks and are fairly predictable in their behavior. Despite how frustrating it may feel after the tenth time dying to the same enemy, the game’s developers want you to succeed. If you’re paying attention, each level teaches you how to beat it. Easier enemies teach you the skills needed to beat the harder ones. Every time you see the “You Died” screen, you should be asking yourself, “what did I do that got me killed, and what should I do differently next time?”
This might be the most important lesson in Agile product development that so few people learn. Most of the products we build are not simply copies of another product. We’re solving new problems or old problems in new ways. Missteps will happen. Success comes when we learn from those missteps and find an innovative solution.
Nothing leads you into disaster like over-committing. In Dark Souls, a wise player will take the game one enemy at a time and always check their corners. This lets you re-evaluate your surroundings and take the best strategy for that moment, even if that strategy is to run back to safety to regroup and rethink.
Agile Product Development is no different. We take our development one small feature at a time. This doesn’t mean we don’t have a larger context in mind, but we also know that each completed feature could show us a fundamental flaw in our thinking. This gives us a chance to take a step back, regroup, and rethink.
Whether you’re playing Dark Souls or building a product, if you don’t want to end up in over your head, take it one small step at a time.
3. You Will Fail. Often.
While it is true that each failure is an opportunity to learn, that doesn’t mean that failure won’t hurt. Whether you’re throwing yourself at the same enemy for the 28th time or you bomb a feature you were sure would be a slam dunk, you will get frustrated and it will kill your motivation. The best players and Agile teams know how to recognize that frustration and recover from it.
Find out what works for you to recover and re-energize. Do you need a break? A small win? Do you need the support of your team to rally and push through the problem? Too often, teams just resign themselves to the frustrating task, which rarely leads you to a successful outcome.
4. Sometimes, Your Princess is in Another Castle
OK, I’m mixing game metaphors, I know, but the lesson holds. Sometimes hitting a wall in Dark Souls is an opportunity to double down and persevere. Other times, it’s a sign you need to go spend a little time tackling other challenges in another level. This can help you unwind the frustration, build new skills, and build up your character. You may find that when you come back to the challenge, it will be easier to overcome.
In Agile development, you will encounter technical challenges and business challenges. You may need to buckle down and work through them, but other times, turning your attention to other feature areas will help you make progress and get your team unstuck. Often, that shakes loose new ideas and new solutions. When you return to the earlier work, you’ll be armed with new ideas and a fresh perspective.
Conclusion
It may seem strange to compare two things that seem so different as playing video games and building products, but in the end, a challenge is a challenge. The ways we work through them carry over across our personal and professional activities. I hope some of these lessons resonate with you.
Hybrid work, in essence, refers to a flexible model of working that allows employees to work from various locations. At its best, it is a supportive model that empowers teams to choose the working arrangement that is most suitable to them. At its worst, it’s a rigid form of pseudo-flexibility that’s more hassle than it’s worth.
The definition of hybrid work, ultimately, is going to depend on the individual organization. For many companies, it means working from home some days in the week, and working in the office the other days. For us, at agile42, it means working remotely most of the time with occasional onsite days, which are carefully planned and facilitated. On our onsite days, we do not simply proceed with our day-to-day work. We use these opportunities to workshop problems, share knowledge, plan and execute new innovations, or test hypotheses. Importantly, we also use this time to connect socially.
Need help adjusting to a hybrid setup? Contact us for coaching, mentoring, facilitation, and consulting services.
It’s about people, not place
In our line of work, we have helped hundreds of companies to create meaningful change, including configuring their remote work arrangements. We have noticed that many people are starting by asking the question, “Where should people work?” This seems like an obvious question to ask, when dealing with hybrid working scenarios, but we would argue that a better question is “How can we humanize our workplaces to better unleash our people’s potential?”
It is helpful to shift your focus to the people that work for and with you, and to be curious and open-minded about how best you can support them. This is a far more beneficial approach than trying to work out a rigid schedule dictating where and when people must work.
While some companies, agile42 included, have been offering hybrid or remote working arrangements for as long as they’ve been around, for the vast majority of businesses this is unchartered territory. If this is all relatively new to you and you’re feeling unsure, you’re not alone! agile42 has coached and trained hundreds of businesses through this transition. It comes with a unique set of challenges, but once companies get themselves properly set up for hybrid work, the response – from managers, HR, employees, their families, and even their pets – has been overwhelmingly positive. Reach out to our team if you want to chat about how we can help you.
Hybrid work vs remote work
Many people use the terms remote and hybrid interchangeably, but they are in fact quite different. Remote work takes place in a location other than a centralized office, such as home, coffee shops, casual workspaces or hubs, or wherever the person happens to be. On the other hand, hybrid work refers to any of a broad range of configurations, in which remote work takes place some of the time but onsite work is also included.
Benefits of hybrid work
83% of workers prefer a hybrid work model, according to the Accenture Future of Work Study 2021. The same report found that hybrid workforce models are embraced by 63% of high-revenue growth companies.
Hybrid working arrangements have a huge range of benefits. These include:
Cost saving, both for the company and individuals
An increase in efficiency
Higher levels of productivity
A better work-life balance
Improved physical and mental health
A reduced carbon footprint
A wider talent pool
42 tips for hybrid work from personal experience
1. Choose the right reasons to meet in person
One of the complaints we hear most about hybrid work arrangements is that people feel their time is being wasted. “Hybrid workers complain that they go to the office only to log on to Zoom or Teams only to spend the rest of the day with their headphones on,” explains Regina Martins, director of agile42 South Africa. There is very little benefit to this sort of arrangement, and it’s usually a sign of a leadership team that values control over effectiveness and output.
A great alternative is to plan onsite days in which all hands are on deck, and the team has a clear goal to achieve. “Sprint change days are perfect days to be in the office”, suggests agile42 coach Birge Kahraman. If you use Scrum, hosting your big Scrum Events such as Retrospectives and Sprint Planning events in-person is a great use of time together.
“Hybrid introduces the challenges of meeting with people physically and remotely at the same time”, according to Agile coach Giuseppe De Simone. “This may confuse the rules of engagement and make some not feel included. This is why it is extremely important to make rules of engagement explicit and agreed upon by everyone”, he says. In particular, it’s important to focus on rules that ensure everyone has the space and time to share their perspectives equally. This means that we need to have good facilitators that can communicate these rules and make sure that feels safe and included.
“It is also very important to implement a safety protocol that can be ritualized with some gestures so that everyone feels safe to interrupt the conversation and express their need for better rules or more respect for those already in place”, explains De Simone.
“Open cameras are good for non-verbal communication”, shares coach Birge Kahraman. It’s a great idea to agree to have cameras-on meetings regularly. But make sure you’re cognisant of how this can affect people too. “It may drain your energy pretty quickly”, continues Kahraman. “Don’t forget to take regular breaks between meetings in order to prevent Zoom Fatigue”.
The importance of breaks is not new: even in traditional office settings it’s crucial to enjoy frequent breaks. For many people, though, it’s much easier to neglect breaks when working remotely. In an office setting, the cadence of the day makes for a natural rhythm, with periods of focus intermingled with breaks. Walking between meetings, stepping out for coffee, or even making small-talk as you pass a colleague’s desk provide your brain with pauses that are extremely beneficial.
In a home office or remote setup, you have to be much more deliberate about it. Even when people do take breaks, sometimes this means switching to different tabs or rushing around to attend to a family responsibility or housework. While these sorts of disruptions and distractions are inevitable, try to avoid thinking of them as breaks.
Director of agile42 South Africa, Regina Martins, shared her style of taking breaks, which we think is a great way to ensure you actually allow your mind some downtime. “I’ve created a ritual for taking regular breaks around coffee”, she explains. “ it is a whole-body experience with specific anchors: visual (I’ve set up a coffee station with colorful cups, a milk frother and different types of coffees); auditory (the sound of coffee dripping into the cup); olfactory (the smell of the coffee makes me happy) and gustatory. I love coffee!”
“I find our 15 minute daily calls invaluable”, shares Amy Bridge, agile42 operations manager. “It’s great to connect as a team as well as iron out any issues or questions”.
Our social media marketer, Emily Stapylton-Smith, agrees: “I regularly check in with my colleague that I work closely with. These catch-ups can help us to understand each other’s priorities and how we can best support each other. They don’t have to last long, but they are a great way to keep us aligned to our goals and working together.”
It’s a sentiment also shared by Sofia Svanbäck, agile42 Business Relationship Manager, who says “I have found the daily syncs with my team very helpful, and very needed so that you do not feel as alone while in the home office”.
6. Remember that we’re all human
“What always delights me are team members’ pets or children crashing meetings and giving us an unpredictable, fun, off-topic moment”, shares Agile and Design Thinking coach Dennis Büscher. “Have coffee talks, make jokes and smile when having online meetings and video calls”, he continues, “and create space and time to also talk about the best series you recently watched on Netflix or the hangover you had after the wedding on Saturday”. It’s more important than ever to humanize the workplace, and to find joy in seeing one another as people with rich and interesting personal lives.
7. Create an environment for asynchronous communication
“Not everything is urgent”, explains Ebru Yalçınkaya, coach for agile42 Turkey. “Try to create an environment for asynchronous communication, especially for things that don’t need an immediate reply”. If you can replace a meeting with an email, do so. This is especially important when you’re working across multiple time zones.
8. Prioritize connections with colleagues
“When working remotely, we miss out on those quick catch-ups over coffee and other lighthearted conversations that happen when we are in the office together”, explains agile42 social media marketer Emily Stapylton-Smith. “Setting aside some time on a Friday to discuss our weekend plans is a great way to ensure we don’t lose this, or it could be posting a picture of your pet on your Slack channel. These moments matter and can help us feel more connected with one another”.
There are many advantages to working remotely, and many people find it much easier to focus in that environment. However, there are times when onsite collaboration can be an advantage. Coach Lothar Fischmann explains, “I’ve experienced that people talk more to each other when everybody is in the same room, both when coaching clients and internally at agile42. For me this means that meeting onsite is pretty important in all areas where we rely on collaboration, especially when it’s about solving complex problems or interpersonal relations”. This is something we’ve observed many times. As Fischmann notes, “the feedback is always more or less the same: we wouldn’t be able to create so much progress in such a short time as a team, if we were working remotely!”
Of course, collaboration is entirely possible when working remotely, but if you’re looking for a good time to schedule onsite days, look for opportunities to solve problems as a team. Don’t use onsite days to carry on with day-to-day work.
10. Set up the best possible workspace
“Home offices are not real offices and for many people that is a challenge,” explains agile42 CEO Marion Eickmann. But the solution to this is not always to force people into an office. It takes a measured, thoughtful approach from leadership, in which you listen to your teams and come up with solutions that will empower them to do their best work. For some, that may mean having a workspace such as an office available. For others, it could mean flexible working hours to accommodate childcare and other personal responsibilities.
Leadership should provide as much support and infrastructure as possible. Supply teams with the tools they need for productivity, as well as the equipment they need to do their jobs. If the company is saving costs on office space, consider investing some of that in good quality chairs, headphones, desks, screens, or any other equipment that can make home offices more accommodating.
11. Unplug after hours
Another challenge we hear about a lot is that remote workers have difficulty putting boundaries between work and their personal lives. This can have serious consequences, like burnout. “If I leave my PC switched on and logged in, it makes me think that I need to continue working”, shares Ebru Yalçınkaya. “After the office hours and weekends, I sometimes simply turn everything off, pack my laptop away and close it totally, so I understand it is my time to relax”.
“Move!” suggests coach Martin von Weissenberg, “Get out of your chair as often as possible”.
Developer Santiago Gomez agrees: “For me it is very important to get up from my seat and stretch and walk or look through the window to rest my eyes. Going to the kitchen and drinking a glass of water also helps; if I have the bottle on my desk I tend not to stand up too often”.
13. Structure your day and create rituals
Suzanne Daly, Team Assistant at agile42, believes that structure is key. “While working from home, structure your day like you would in the office”, she suggests. “Start at the same time, take frequent breaks (including a lunch break) and finish at the usual time. Personally I find the Pomodoro method works well, particularly while working from home”.
Coach Ninja Granzow agrees: “build habits to structure the day”, she says, “go for a walk in the morning, have lunch, and find an activity to close the workday”.
14. Think about how collocation will improve productivity
“The winners in hybrid working will be those who really think about how – and when – collocation will improve productivity”, muses Peter Hundermark, mentor at agile42, “Just saying ‘you need to be in the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays because that’s our new rule’ is not going to cut it.”
“The main purposes of collocation”, he explains, “are (1) to build and maintain human connection and (2) synchronous collaboration where having the whole human system in the room is important. When planning the collocated part of hybrid working, you should be working to achieve these purposes in each aspect, including who is there, when they are there, and how you use the space”.
When you’re working with colleagues who are scattered, having some transparency and visibility around your calendars is important. But this doesn’t mean that any gap in your schedule is up for grabs. A simple trick to avoid finding yourself overbooked in back-to-back meetings, without any real productivity time, is to use your calendars to reserve time for yourself. This could be as simple as setting your working hours, or you could book an entire day every week as a day for focus without disruption. Regina Martins, director of agile42 South Africa, says, “I find it useful to create space in my calendar for lunch. I book it out as a daily recurring appointment called Sit in the sun and smell the roses. This makes sure people don’t book meetings during that time. And I actually try to sit in the sun. I don’t have any roses at the moment because it’s winter in South Africa, but the sentiment applies. It’s also a bit of an inside joke with my fellow coaches”.
16. Do something innovative when you have all hands on deck
At agile42, we host monthly Coach Camps. These began as a knowledge exchange specifically for our coaches, but have transformed into all-hands days of innovation, workshopping, knowledge sharing, and getting to know one another. We do this every month virtually, and once a year we come together in person from all over the world. “Our Coach Camps are completely enlivening”, shares digital marketer Lauren Edwards, “It’s a huge injection of passion and energy: we drop our day-to-day tasks for a day or two and just dedicate ourselves completely to collaboration and innovation. I only see most of my colleagues about once a year in person, and I am so grateful that this is how we use that time together”.
Sofia Svanbäck, agile42 Business Relationship Manager, agrees: “I have also appreciated that we meet with the whole company at our internal Coach Camps – they bring us together as a group”.
Need help planning or facilitating collaboration days? Get in touch, we can help!
17. Make sure everyone is remote (or onsite) but not a mix
“Having some people together in a room and others joining remotely creates a big disconnect”, shares Berlin-based coach Simon Sablowski. Sablowski has years of experience with facilitation, and some of the key principles behind facilitation shed light on why this is the case:
Help people move through a process together
Include all participants and ensure equal participation
Never take sides and always maintain neutrality
These simply don’t work in a hybrid setup, says Sablowski: “Usually one of two things happens: Either the discussion takes place in the room and individuals joining remotely are disengaged and at best listening to the conversation, or the people joining remotely compensate for not being present in the room by trying to dominate the conversation. A hybrid setup hinders people from moving through a process or reaching their goal together. Equal participation is almost impossible. It takes a lot of willingness, discipline and practice to make it work. Facilitators struggle with maintaining neutrality because it’s more natural to take sides with those that are not included in the conversations as much as others. Therefore, we should stick to the principle: If one participant joins remotely, all join remotely”.
18. Accept that people’s home lives might mingle with work more
It can be frustrating when distractions from people’s daily lives creep into work. In an office setting, everyone is dealing with the same circumstances. But in remote or hybrid setups, there may be someone with a screaming child, another person with a cat in front of the camera, someone dealing with a neighbor’s drilling, and yet another person with connectivity issues. “Keep calm if there is some family noise or background noise in Zoom meetings”, suggests Sofia Svanbäck, agile42 Business Relationship Manager, “because they are a part of our new normal when it comes to remote work”.
“One tip I would give is clear ownership of tasks”, advises Team Assistant Suzanne Daly, “Our team regularly reviews our workflow and decides who will take care of what tasks. This ensures each member of the team knows their role and responsibilities. It also ensures that I know that the tasks assigned to other team members are taken care of and I don’t have to worry about them. For vacation, we then decide who will take care of tasks for those who are away so they can relax while they are out of office and know the tasks are taken care of during that time”.
20. Build relationships
“No real teamwork is possible without building true human relationships”, cautions coach Giuseppe De Simone, “Having a group of people truly working elbow to elbow requires meeting in person from time to time, just to build those connections”. And while the occasional offsite holiday-style meetup is great, it’s not enough. This form of in-person meetup creates an artificial environment, says De Simone, “Working on real stuff, collaborating and maybe even fighting… This will help create the relationships that will allow every individual to recognize that face behind the camera not as a stranger, but someone they had a shared experience with”.
21. Ensure trust exists among your team
Trust occurs when team members are able to be vulnerable with one another and are willing to admit their mistakes, weaknesses or needs for help. Without a certain comfort level among team members, a foundation of trust is impossible. This is even more important when working remotely. It’s very easy for people to become isolated, to avoid asking for help, and to let problems build up until they become unmanageable.
Need help building trust and fostering a safe-to-fail culture? Our OrgScan tool is the perfect starting point to help you understand the status quo, and then make meaningful changes.
22. Focus on outcomes not hours
If you’ve installed time-tracking software on your team’s PCs, you’re definitely doing it wrong. Time and again, we see managers and leadership teams counting the hours worked, as if this means anything. It simply doesn’t, in the modern workplace. Focusing on the number of hours spent at a desk has proven negative effects, like presenteeism (working while sick or otherwise impaired) or the so-called “quiet quitting” (employees doing the bare minimum to meet the requirements of their roles). In our years of consulting, training, and coaching, we have seen immense improvements in productivity, work-life balance, and job satisfaction when the focus is on outcomes instead.
Some industries have billable hours, like legal firms and consultancies, and in this instance time-tracking is necessary. However, outside of this, there is no good reason to focus on how many hours your employees are putting in.
23. Lean on your company culture
Hybrid and remote working arrangements are a sure-fire way to expose problems with your organizational culture. The problems created by a bad company culture are exacerbated when you’re not all in the same room.
This is a great time to adapt, and to introduce Agile frameworks that can carry you through with great success. For instance, leaders who are adaptable and have experience with various leadership styles will notice that they don’t really need to make drastic changes when switching to remote. Leaders who previously got by on control, on the other hand, will notice things falling apart fairly quickly.
In a culture of trust, autonomy, and respect, where teams feel safe and confident to make decisions, remote workers can truy thrive. If the culture is such that the team is afraid to make decisions and take initiative, on the other hand, there is likely to be a lot of confusion and delays.
Want to measure and improve your organizational culture? That’s what our Organizational Scan™ is for.
24. Have frequent retrospectives
“Frequent retrospectives (especially initially) can help to ensure everyone in the team agrees with the workflow, and more importantly their personal workload”, says agile42 Team Assistant Suzanne Daly. Retros are always important to make sure everyone’s on track, but in a remote or hybrid setup, they are more important than ever. They give everyone a chance to share the issues they are struggling with.
Hybrid and remote work offers many opportunities to reduce waste, and you should take advantage of these. If you’re part of leadership, consider whether you can save costs on office rental, perhaps by renting a room once a week or once a month instead of every day.
Consider the way you schedule meetings, too. It might be tempting to meet more often when colleagues are not in the same room, especially if there is a lack of trust or structure in the team. But this shouldn’t be necessary and can cause a lot of wasted time.
Commuting can also be attached to waste. If you’re commuting less often, you are saving plenty of time and money.
26. Adapt your leadership style
Agile leadership is the ability to be flexible, use different approaches, and adapt to the context and the people involved. Because of this dependence on context, expectations and relationships, there are no leadership behaviors that are inherently positive or negative in and of themselves. Rather, there are leadership behaviors which are more or less appropriate within the context.
As an example, some leaders might try to make sudden changes to their leadership style when teams aren’t onsite. They may begin to be more directive, hoping to hang onto a sense of control. For teams who are used to having more autonomy, this can be highly frustrating. On the other hand, leaders may suddenly be less involved, and let teams get on with their work without interference. For teams who are accustomed to being told what to do, and when, this can be a very stressful change.
When leaders understand their teams and use leadership behaviors that align with the needs of their teams, this is known as coherent leadership.
27. Support one another
A Stanford study showed that workers are 13% more productive, on average, when working from home. This is attributed to a lack of commute and distractions. However, it comes at a cost, and loneliness is a very real challenge for many people. It’s much harder to recognize when people are struggling when they’re not in the same room, so it helps to make a point of checking in with one another regularly.
STAGES OF WORKING FROM HOME – Yay I get to work from home – It would be nice to talk to people – I hope that pigeon sits in the window today
In a hybrid work environment, there are different priorities and your budget should shift accordingly. Invest in making it easy for your teams. Listen to your team’s needs, and then invest in the tools, infrastructure, and resources that will meet those needs. The tools should work for you; you shouldn’t work for the tools.
There are many benefits to hybrid working, so remember to take advantage of them. “I am grateful every day for how much time I get to spend with my elderly dog, and how I can use the time I used to spend commuting for exercise instead”, shares Digital Marketer Lauren Edwards. “It’s been important to make sure I log off at the end of the day and enjoy the improved work-life balance hybrid work offers me”.
30. Let go of control
Many leaders have struggled to adjust to hybrid working arrangements. In most cases, this is a result of leaders being accustomed to control over their teams. Hybrid is a great chance to work on letting go of control, managing flow rather than people, and encouraging teams to self-organize. If you need help with this process, agile42’s coaches have decades of experience and can coach, mentor, or train your leaders and teams. Contact us to find out what we can do for your teams.
31. Bring new people on board onsite
“Onboarding is easier face-to-face”, explains CEO Marion Eickmann. When you bring on new team members, try to do so in-person. It helps new team members to settle in and meet their colleagues, in a low-pressure way. If this isn’t possible, try to set up “coffee chats” to meet new colleagues, or arrange an in-person day for the near future.
32. Nurture talent
The popularity of hybrid and remote setups has put us in a unique position. Many barriers have fallen away, giving companies access to top talent like never before. Location is no longer as much of a barrier, so the pool of candidates has expanded. More accessible workplaces also reduce barriers for those with health issues and disabilities, resulting in more diverse and more inclusive workplaces. This makes it possible to find and accommodate the best possible talent for the role.
33. Limit context switching
Context switching, very simply put, is switching between tasks. This is something that is required in most jobs: you have to be able to change between meetings and different kinds of tasks. But many of us have felt the negative effect of too much context switching: when you’re flicking between tabs so much it feels like you’re getting nothing done, or when you’ve jumped from meetings to tasks and back so many times you’re completely exhausted. Our brains simply aren’t capable of this degree of context switching, and this can lead to burnout. “Have regular short breaks”, advised coach Ninja Granzow, “and make sure you balance appointments, interactions, and things to do alone”.
If you’re finding that the budget stretches a little further without paying for daily office space, consider investing this in the people that make up your company. An Organizational Learning Program is a great way to help your teams learn new skills that they can bring to the table.
35. Make use of freed up time
Many people have found that spending less time in an office has brought them greater work-life balance, and opened up a great deal of free time. Our advice is to use this time doing things you love, or spending time with the people that matter to you. Don’t be tempted to work longer hours or get stuck in front of your screen, Log off on time, and do things that bring you joy outside of work.
36. Give feedback
In person, it’s fairly common to walk over to someone to handover a project or submit a piece of work. This means we’re more likely to get regular, consistent feedback. When communication switches to virtual platforms, it can be easy to lose this. If using platforms like Trello, handovers and submissions can begin to happen almost wordlessly, with only automated notifications. Try to schedule regular feedback sessions and make time to give and receive feedback. Sprint Reviews fill this role well if using Scrum.
37. Communicate well
“Clear and consistent communication with team members is so important”, says Team Assistant Suzanne Daly. “Having multiple ways to communicate is useful so your Team always feels accessible. But make sure you have working agreements on how to use certain forms of communication, so that information is not lost”.
These days, it isn’t uncommon for teams to be working from various countries. If your business has a global footprint it’s a huge advantage to have a presence across time zones. However, it can make collaboration difficult. Try to ensure that team members overlap, at least by a few hours, where possible. In most cases, even an hour or two is enough to make sure there is frequent communication.
39. Meet in person occasionally even if your work is fully remote
“Over the pandemic this was not possible”, says Office Manager Suzanne Daly, “but meeting in person even infrequently is good for team members. It’s a chance to socialise and talk about non-work things”
40. Make mentorship accessible
One thing that comes more naturally in an office setting is mentorship. It can be much more challenging for younger, less experienced team members to reach out for help if they have to do so through digital communication. Acknowledge this, and try to set something up that works for your teams. Perhaps you could do monthly or weekly workshops or knowledge sharing sessions, or you could set up a formal mentorship programme.
“Music!” says Regina Martins, director of agile42 South Africa. “I work well with music… so I do!”
And it’s not just about music. Choose to make your workspace work for you! On your remote days you have the chance to make your workspace whatever you want it to be. Maybe you like the temperature set low, or loud music, or maybe you prefer absolute silence. It’s a unique chance to set up the space that works for you, without having to consider colleagues.
If you’re just adjusting to a hybrid setup, or even fully remote, it’s a good time to take stock and improve. Ask yourself if there are redundancies, waste, too many meetings, or other factors curbing productivity and causing fatigue. And if there are, take the chance to do something about it.
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