Don't Panic Archives

Mentoring: Interview with Agile Coach Dennis Becker

October 5, 2021/by Lauren Edwards

Read the full interview transcript below:

Why is it important to have a mentor?

There are many ways in which a mentor can encourage and enable the personal as well as the professional development of another person. For example, they can help focusing on a goal or provide qualitative feedback.

In a company, the knowledge of a mentor can help in training and creating a high quality and productive workforce through mentoring programs. With the help of a mentor, the mentee can set personal as well as professional development goals themselves. At times when the mentee is having troubles completing a task or achieving a goal, you can go and ask the mentor for help. This encouragement may motivate the mentee to continue despite obstacles and a mentor can also recognize and articulate the strength of the mentee to instill confidence.

There's honest feedback that comes from a trusting mentoring relationship. Through building trust, the mentee understands that the constructive criticism he gets or may get is aimed to their growth and is not intended to to make them feel miserable. A mentor can expose weaknesses and point out opportunities for improvement to the mentee.

In a nutshell, the mentor can support your growth, help you setting goals, and offer encouragement and feedback.

How has agile42's mentoring made a difference to your onboarding experience?

When you start a new job, and perhaps even take a new position, the flood of new information and things can often leave you somewhat disorientated. It's just too much. At first, it can even be difficult to recognize your own value, and how you can best contribute.

By offering weekly mentoring from the first week on, agile42 was helping me a lot to quickly understand the context and procedures I was in and to quickly get my head around things. However, we paid special attention also to my individual development, which means that we picked out various topics which are important from my perspective in order to reach goals and to improve.

Due to the situation with COVID, and the remote setup, the mentoring had a different importance, I think, than in previous jobs because it was more difficult to get a feeling for your work, for your colleagues, and what you actually do and with whom. So the mentoring was already helping me a lot to get started.

What is important when choosing a mentor?

What I think is important to consider when choosing a mentor is possible diversity. You will work closely with your mentor, and it's important that you harmonize with this person. Otherwise the relationship will feel a little bit strained or forced. But at the same time, you don't want to have someone who's just like you or your best friend, because you rather need someone who brings in a new perspective of things; who brings in diversity. And having this kind of mentor then helps you to step out of your comfort zone.

Secondly, trust is important. Trust is one of the greatest importance. After all, you will tell your mentor a lot of different things in confidence. In fact, this relationship will be most successful if your mentor trusts you as well as you trust your mentor. So build on this mutual trust to make the very best of your partnership.

Last but not least: expertise. You would like a mentor with enough experience to help you address your specific challenges. But that doesn't necessarily mean that you have to choose someone with the most years of work experience on their record. This isn't a matter of finding a mentor with the most years of experience or the greatest title. Instead, it's about choosing a mentor who has the knowledge as well as the experience to guide you along your own way.

To summarize, this means there are three important things to consider when choosing a mentor: first of all, diversity; second of all trust; and last but not least, expertise.

Curious about Mentoring?

Becker will be a guest in our October webinar, The Value of a Sensei: Lifelong Learning Through Mentoring. Along with agile42 coach Ninja Granzow, he will explore this theme and share insights. Register now for free to learn more and ask questions.

Festive Giveaway: Competition Terms and Conditions

October 2, 2021/by agile42

1- The Promoter is agile42 whose registered office is at Grünberger Str. 54, Berlin 10245, Germany.

2- The competition is open to residents of all countries aged 18 years or over except employees of agile42 and their close relatives and anyone otherwise connected with the organisation or judging of the competition.

3- There is no entry fee and no purchase necessary to enter this competition.

4- By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating their agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.

5- Route to entry for the competition and details of how to enter are via LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

6- Only one entry will be accepted per person. Multiple entries from the same person will be disqualified and only the first comment posted per person will count as an entry.

7- Closing date for entry will be Friday, 10 December 2021 at 23:59 CET. After this time the no further entries to the competition will be permitted.

8- No responsibility can be accepted for entries not received for whatever reason.

9- The rules of the competition and how to enter are as follows:

Entrants are required to follow agile42, like the post, and post a comment sharing their biggest lesson form the year 2021. This can be done on any one of the four platforms where the competition is active.

10- The promoter reserves the right to cancel or amend the competition and these terms and conditions without notice in the event of a catastrophe, war, civil or military disturbance, act of God or any actual or anticipated breach of any applicable law or regulation or any other event outside of the promoter’s control. Any changes to the competition will be notified to entrants as soon as possible by the promoter.

11- The promoter is not responsible for inaccurate prize details supplied to any entrant by any third party connected with this competition.

12- The prize is as follows:

The prize consists of e-learning courses from the agile42 e-learning catalogue, for up to 10 individuals. Each individual may take one course. The voucher is valid for 12 months, and once enrolled, the winner will have one month of access to complete the course. The prize is as stated and no cash or other alternatives will be offered. The prizes are not transferable. Prizes are subject to availability and we reserve the right to substitute any prize with another of equivalent value without giving notice.

13- Winners will be chosen at random by software, from all entries received and verified by Promoter and or its agents.

14- The winner will be notified by direct message (DM) on the social media platform on which they entered within 10 days of the closing date. If the winner cannot be contacted or do not claim the prize within 48 hours of notification, we reserve the right to withdraw the prize from the winner and pick a replacement winner.

15- The promoter will notify the winner when and how the prize can be redeemed via voucher code. The voucher will be valid for 12 months from the date of issue.

16- The promoter’s decision in respect of all matters to do with the competition will be final and no correspondence will be entered into.

17- By entering this competition, an entrant is indicating their agreement to be bound by these terms and conditions.

18- The competition and these terms and conditions will be governed by German law and any disputes will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Germany.

19- The winner agrees to the use of their name, image, and comments in any publicity material, as well as their entry. Any personal data relating to the winner or any other entrants will be used solely in accordance with current data protection legislation and will not be disclosed to a third party without the entrant’s prior consent.

20- The winner’s name will be available 28 days after closing date on the original social posts across the four platforms.

21- Entry into the competition will be deemed as acceptance of these terms and conditions.

22- This promotion is in no way sponsored, endorsed or administered by, or associated with, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram or any other Social Network. You are providing your information to agile42 and not to any other party. The information provided will be used in conjunction with the agile42 Privacy Policy.

23- agile42 shall have the right, at its sole discretion and at any time, to change or modify these terms and conditions, such change shall be effective immediately upon posting to this webpage.

24- agile42 also reserves the right to cancel the competition if circumstances arise outside of its control.

How to Create a Kanban Board: A Practical Guide

September 29, 2021/by Birge Kahraman

How to design your Kanban board

The very first Change Management Principle of Kanban states, “start with what you do now.” However, this can be overwhelming if you own multiple different types of projects and tasks.

Recommended for you: Kanban Foundations online course

It’s always a good idea to collaborate with your team members and utilize the group’s wisdom. A quick guided brainstorming session will help you gather the information you need, so you can reflect this on your board effectively and creatively. Keep in mind that the board will be an essential part of your working day, and it needs to be updated regularly by your team members. That’s why it’s crucial to come up with a board that is easy to understand and update. If you overcomplicate things, it will have a negative impact on efficiency and discourage your team members from using it correctly. However, don’t worry if you don’t get it perfect the first time: creating a Kanban board is an iterative process and you will be able to improve it over time.

Step 1: Ask the key questions

Before starting to lay down your daily tasks and processes, first, align on some key questions.

For whom are we designing the board? Is it only for our internal purposes, or will our stakeholders also benefit from it?
What are the most critical points for us? What do we want to see with the first look? The workload? The blockers? Status of individual tasks?
How detailed shall the individual cards be?
How frequently are we going to update the board? As soon as a task changes the status or is it acceptable for us to update it daily?

Step 2: Discuss the processes and tasks

After aligning on those answers, you can move on to the next step and start talking about your processes and tasks. Ask everyone to think and write about their steps after a task appears.

Where do you collect information and the tasks?
Are there any waiting points? Any approvals? Any dependencies where you can see patterns?
Do you have team members who have different roles?

Depending on the nature of your tasks, you may have different steps. It will be easy if you draw a flowchart. If you are a customer care team, your flowchart is probably similar to this one:

You can choose different colors for different people and use initials or avatars to indicate the task owner. It’s also another Kanban practice to limit the work in progress (WIP), to finish the tasks at a certain pace without creating a crowd in specific steps. Monitoring the times of the individual cards will help you to improve your cycle and lead times.

Recommended for you: Make the process fun with the Kanban Pizza Game

If all your team members are doing their tasks in a similar pattern, it’s easier to visualize this. But if you have different responsibilities within your team, recommend grouping them. For example, you may use different “swimlanes” for different roles or subteams.

Of course, you may combine them, too. If you can utilize physical boards or walls, it will give you more flexibility compared to a standard tool like Jira or Trello.

Download our free Miro templates to copy and modify for your needs.

Want to learn more about Kanban?

Kanban is a workflow management system that can help you visualize, streamline, and improve on your processes in the workplace. But there’s more to it than simply creating a board. Learn about it in our Kanban Foundations online course, or take a look at our webinars, which cover a broad range of topics on Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and just about anything else that relates to improving the workplace. There are also a number of agile42 training options, both in-person and remotely, which can transform the way you work:

If you need some more help getting your team started in Kanban methods, check out our Kanban Start-Up Package, which includes dedicated in-person coaching as well as Kanban training.

Gaetano Mazzanti (AKT) proves to Martin von Weissenberg (CEC) that Kanban is better than Scrum.

Scrum Survivor

April 1, 2021/by Martin von Weissenberg

agile42 is proud to present a new TV series format: Scrum Survivor! Three software development teams of 7±2 people will battle it out on reality TV. Who will be the winner? Read on for an exciting behind the scenes interview.

“Scrum has achieved global name recognition by now,” says the executive producer of the show, Niels Verdonk. “With software taking over the world, everyone knows what Scrum is about! There’s an immense pent-up demand — millions of people will want to watch geeks argue with Product Owners on live TV.”

The director of the show, Daniel Lynn, nods in agreement. “It’s all about ‘individuals and interactions’,” he says, inserting the inverted commas with a flourish. “Just like in reality TV. Lots of synergies here, and we think this adaptation will work out very nicely.”

“We are setting up three teams now for this spring season that starts on April 1, 2021,” Niels confirms. “The teams will be named Node.js, C++ and The Pythonistas according to their programming languages. We had plans to line up a fourth team too, COBOL, but it kind of died out.”

According to Daniel and Niels, Scrum is a great method for this project. “There’s just so many meetings all the time!” says Niels. “Plenty of opportunities for people to meet and talk and discuss and move notes. Post-it notes.”

Daniel fills in the details. “We’ve been advised to do daily standups, planning meetings part I, planning meetings part II, backlog grooming, brainstorming meetings, customer meetings, quality circles, retrospectives by the book — and a very good book that is, by the way — sprint reviews, retrospectives on the retrospectives, post mortems, and of course the team building exercises that Scrum team members so love.”

“Yeah, and then drinks on Zoom after work — bring your own beer! It’ll be so much fun”, Niels beams. “And then we’ll be taking each developer aside to put their suspicions and reactions on film.”

Success in the game is based on delivering working software every sprint, of course. Also compliance with the Agile Manifesto will be closely monitored and measured. After each Sprint, the team delivering the fewest story points will be forced to vote out a team member.

“There’s got to be some tension in the team, obviously,” explains consulting agile coach Martin von Weissenberg. “Otherwise they’ll get complacent.”

The discussion on how to measure productivity was quickly resolved using Full-Violence Communication. Based on Lothar’s very convincing argumentation, the producers accepted story points as the metric. “The C++ team wanted to do the estimates themselves — they almost had us there,” laughs Lothar Fischmann, who will play the role of Product Owner on the show. ”All estimates in the show will of course be done by the Product Owner, just like in reality.”

The producers are aiming for the teams to complete a number of common challenges, brainstormed by experienced agile42 coaches. One of the first will be to get some training and coaching. “That’s just a simple warm-up exercise. And a trap, of course,” sniggers Martin von Weissenberg. “Any team that goes for the training and coaching will find the other teams already coding away like there’s no tomorrow.”

According to Niels, the teams will be closed down after the season is done anyway, so training them would be a waste of time and money. “But sure, we can send a couple of people to a CSM. If they ask for it. Or buy a few books perhaps.”

How to integrate the immunity amulet is still up for debate, however. Initially the producers were leaning towards giving the amulet to the most productive developer after every sprint. However, installing a proper source code versioning tool to keep track of things would just add to the overhead. “So we’ll just have the Scrum Master nominate ‘the coder of the week’ or something like that,” Lothar explains. “It’ll work out fine, I’m sure.”

Normal work will proceed in the usual way, we’ve learned. The production team went to great lengths to ensure a good, workable backlog. First they copied the list of customer requirements into Jira. Then they started generating insights with all stakeholders in a long series of in-depth, synergistic workshops.

“We added estimates, story points, hours total, hours remaining, projected increments, and suchlike,” Lothar clarifies. “We also filed all 479 backlog items as priority 1 and then flipped the ‘Mandatory?’ dropdown to ‘Yes’ for all of them, so that the team knows it’s all in the contract and not optional in any way.” Martin agrees: “What if the teams left something out, or went and built something that the customer hadn’t agreed to pay for? We would all feel so stupid.”

For the Scrum Master, the team considered a number of high-profile actors — with the additional intention to draw in an extended audience. Early talks with George Clooney floundered, as he was just too likeable for the role. The producers warmed to Jack Nicholson, who, as Daniel put it, “had the right kind of gleam in his eyes.” In the end, they decided that having a dedicated Scrum Master was just a waste of time, so one of the developers will have to volunteer 50% of their time.

“That’s how it’s done everywhere nowadays,” says Martin. “And I ask you — how much time does it take to send out those meeting invitations anyway? What? Yes, well, with all those meetings it will add up I suppose. But even so. Can’t take that much time.”

In a move that has been criticized strongly by many fans in the Agile community, all sprints will be synchronized and pooled up into product increments. “I don’t see what the problem is,” says Daniel. “This is just common practice across the industry. We can’t have one team go off and deliver earlier than the others, can we? Or work in different Sprint lengths? We’d have the customers running around here every day!”

Martin agrees. “Scrum teams can start delivering twice the stuff in half the time, so you will need to slow them down,” he says. “It’s common sense really — just introduce some kind of framework and they’ll be back in lockstep before you can say... um, whatever the framework acronym stands for. If that isn’t agile, I don’t know what is.”

There have been rumors that the lead agile coach, Andrea Tomasini, resigned from the job on the first day. We asked Niels Verdonk if he had any comments on this. “Absolutely untrue! He didn’t storm off and slam any doors at all,” says Niels.

“Rather, just after we finished presenting the setup to him, he had an unfortunate attack of dizziness and needed to go for a stiff drink and a lie-down,” Daniel explains. “The doctors say it’s an advanced case of over-agile thinking. We wish him all the best and hope for a quick recovery. They said they’ll let him out of the padded room within a few months, tops.”

And what kind of reward will the winner of Scrum Survivor get? "Reward?" asks an astonished Niels. "Oh yes, the Survivor will get some heartfelt thanks from the CEO and probably a small gift, like one fine crystal champagne glass. Isn't that customary after a project finishes?"

"Yes, one of those expensive artsy pieces of glassware that you wouldn't buy even if you could afford them, and then you'll have an odd number of them ever after," Daniel explains. "Oh yeah, and they'll still be employed, obviously. Should be grateful."

Authors: agile42 coaches & trainers, Martin von Weissenberg & Pascal Papathemelis

Participate in a Pulse to sense organization resilience

April 23, 2020/by Andrea Tomasini

We are aware of how challenging the worldwide situation is for every business and how many companies are shifting the way they operate and sometimes even inventing new ways to ensure business continuity. In this context, organizations that were designed to be robust to external challenges are struggling, because they were not ready for such an unpredictable challenge. On the other side, companies which were able to grow resilience as an organizational capability will find in their DNA the ability to recover fast, adapt and possibly even grow stronger after the crisis: we’re getting some true real-time lessons in what resilient organizations are in a time of rapid change.

To help businesses and leaders make sense of what is happening and manage through the COVID-19 escalation, agile42 in partnership with Cognitive Edge has developed a Sensemaker pulse to get an understanding of how resilient organizations are, which we trust will provide valuable information to all our clients.

How companies are reacting to the pandemic?
How resilient different industries sectors have been?
How individuals are affected and reacting?
How policies of different governments are helping?

In such a volatile environment, it is impossible to rely on our individual ability to understand what happens and be able to take the necessary decisions in a time that is compatible with the faster and faster lead time needed in the current situation.

So we ask you to participate in the pulse by accessing the following link:
collector.sensemaker-suite.com
It will take no more than 10 minutes.

The results will be collected in a report and shared for free from agile42.

You are also welcome to share the link with your colleagues: we want to hear as many stories as possible.

Like a breath of fresh air…

April 9, 2020/by Marion Eickmann

Lately, every item in my newsfeed seems to fall into one of two categories: doom and gloom, or work work work and productivity. We deserve a break, you deserve a break, and it is time for all of us to take one, kindly provided by our beloved Carrington-Brown.

The supremely talented musical and comedy duo (trio if we count Joe, the cello) impressed us for the first time in the 2014 Scrum Gathering mingle evening, and we had to have them back for the 2015 agile42 Connect. And because we couldn’t get enough, we also invited them to be our special guests for the 2019 agile42 Christmas Party. By now we consider them partners and friends. We are obsessed, and if you take a look at their material, you will be too. Combining impressive musical chops with side-splitting humor, Rebecca Carrington and Colin Brown are the breath of fresh air you didn’t know you needed in your life.

Did you know that 3 minutes are all the time you need to get through Carmen?
Do you want to see just two human beings sing with 100 different voices?
Did you ever wonder how well opera, Ed Sheeran, and Bollywood would go together?

And that’s not all.

agile42 and Carrington-Brown are working on a combined offer for leaders and managers who like to become great speakers, presenters, and motivators.

More music and entertainment you can find on their Website or on YouTube.

A message from agile42 at time of COVID-19 epidemic

March 18, 2020/by Marion Eickmann

We are reaching out to our community in this trying time to share with you our commitment to minimizing the spread of COVID-19 (“Coronavirus disease”). Your safety and that of your families and ours is our primary concern. We are striving to get the right balance of caution and service to our customers, from coaches to training attendees, and remain committed to providing a safe environment.

agile42 is carefully monitoring the COVID-19 situation in all countries of operation by checking reliable and official sources daily. Circumstances vary by location and everyone is facing different challenges, so for every country we are following the local governments’ recommendations instead of applying a single plan.

agile42 has been working remotely for over 12 years and can provide guidance with experience, tools and practices on how to effectively operate remotely. We are aware that the worldwide situation is constantly evolving and we are also aware that business continuity is essential.

It is our intention to ensure the seamless continuity of our business and services at all levels as much as possible. Here is what we are doing to help:

We are going to shift many of our upcoming scheduled classes to virtual classes and we will deliver the best quality we can in an engaging and interactive form.
We will be hosting a series of webinars to share the way we have managed to work remotely. Hopefully, our approach will be of help to you.
We will be offering remote coaching and consulting services to help you keep operating as effectively as possible. We are also looking at new remote product offerings around remote facilitation, leading in these complex times, and other topics. Look out for those!
In regions where there is currently no limitation from health authorities, we might still offer limited in-person training. In those cases, we ask everyone to follow the general guidelines on hygiene and avoiding infection to create an enjoyable and safe training environment for everybody.
We trust you all to be socially responsible. For example, we ask you, if you feel even mild symptoms of a respiratory infection, like fever, throat ache or cough, to please get in touch with us. We will find a way to make it easy for you to stay home and take care of your health and that of others.

We will continue to follow the authorities’ and scientists’ guidelines, as well as be prepared to take additional decisions on an ongoing basis.

While the environment around us is uncertain, we thank you for your patience as we make changes to provide you with the best possible service in light of these challenging times. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us.

New coaching technique: Full-Violence Communication

April 1, 2017/by Martin von Weissenberg

At agile42 we are always interested in trying out new approaches. We have applied Nonviolent Communication (NVC) for a while now but feel that it doesn’t necessarily give the desired results fast enough. In our search for instant gratification, we instead created the Full-Violence Communication (FVC) approach.

Unlike the many ancient Japanese methods available for finding out the next steps, including genchi genbutsu and heijunka, FVC is a quite recent technique from the US. It follows the basic agile tenet of just doing it and asking for forgiveness later. As you will see, FVC embraces diversity and dissent and lets people bring alternative facts to the table.

agile42 coaches Simon Sablowski, Daniel Lynn and Bent Myllerup warming up before the FVC session.

The FVC method is fairly simple, bordering on obvious. Complicated processes require people to spend a lot of time on figuring out what actually needs to be done at any given point in time. Since FVC relies on primal reactions in the human brain, it totally bypasses the frontal cortex that is responsible for rational thought processes. This way the higher cognitive functions are freed up for tackling technical complexity in e.g. the software product the team is working on.

In a nutshell, when people have different opinions about something, we just follow this simple FVC process:

Full Violence Communication workflow

As you can see, the argument is settled by the simple expedient of seeing who is the last person standing. This lets the team rapidly and efficiently converge on the solution with the strongest backing. As a side effect, the team quickly becomes extremely motivated and gains an immense amount of focus. This obviously saves a lot of time and reduces the cost of delay. We do not know of any other method that achieves this kind of results in such a short time.

Martin von Weissenberg agrees that Daniel Lynn is right about story points.

Scrum sensei Daniel Lynn is one of the inventors of FVC and a strong proponent of the method. Asked to summarize the method in one sense, he thinks for a while and says: “Might makes right. In other words, if all we have is opinions, let’s go with mine.”

Gaetano Mazzanti notes that the agile42 coaches were not convinced at first, but that Daniel Lynn was very persuasive. “Having discussed the topic with Daniel, I now see that FVC is a fantastic tool in my toolbox. This could speed up the coaching process immensely.”

Daniel Lynn explains the finer details of daily standups to the not very stand-uppish team.

Simon Sablowski and Martin von Weissenberg agree. “Awareness brings choice. Thus if somebody makes a choice, and applies FVC, then the others will quickly become aware of it. Unless of course they are unconscious,” contemplates Martin.

Gaetano Mazzanti (AKT) proves to Martin von Weissenberg (CEC) that Kanban is better than Scrum.

For teams who want to practice FVC on their own, we can recommend the good old Finnish party game where you bring lots of vodka and one puukko knife each to a dark hut in the woods. This game obviously works best in a multi-team setting but can also work well within a single team. The vodka serves double-duty as internal cushioning for falls and internal disinfection of possible wounds. Naturally, the game can also be played alone, but that requires a lot more vodka.

Coming soon from agile42: Full-Violence Communication classes. Stay tuned!

The case of champagne in the daily stand-up

April 1, 2016/by Martin von Weissenberg

In our series of blog posts on coaching tools, we have arrived at the real crowd-pleaser: serving champagne in the Daily Standup. For a long time, the coaches at agile42 have experimented with champagne in other settings, and we believe that time has come for the noble drink to finally take center stage in Scrum!

To satisfy our thirst for information regarding the pros and cons of enjoying a glass or two at the daily, we turn to Ima Drunkarde (Ph.D., VSOP), the well-known alcohol researcher from the University of Applied Chemistry in Wien.

“Well,” says Ima, “we are happy, yes one could even say intoxicated by this opportunity to connect the somewhat dry academic world of applied chemistry research with the fizzling and sparkling real-life industry setting!”

That settled, we gently guide the interview towards the upsides and downsides of enjoying champagne in the daily standups. This seems to be a novel approach with a lot of potential benefits — what would be the most visible impact?

“The most clear advantage is that people start arriving on time,” explains Dr. Drunkarde. “Without champagne, the standups generally started up to ten minutes late. With champagne, the test subjects were able to cut that down by an order of magnitude!”

“Surprisingly, this effect is partially due to the open offices that are so popular nowadays. In an open office, the distinctive pop of a champagne cork carries quite far, and people immediately make a beeline for the kitchen,” says Dr. Drunkarde, taking a sip from a research bottle. “Congested pathways and thoroughfares can be easily identified and avoided in the open landscape, speeding up the arrival of key stakeholders.”

“Of course, actually serving the champagne into glasses can take several minutes. However, if you put serving champagne on the agenda as the very first point, you can actually start the meeting even before everyone has arrived,” hints Dr. Drunkarde.

It transpires that the research group has experimented not only with the agenda but also with some traditional standup tools. “The champagne bottle in fact makes a convenient talking stick,” Dr. Drunkarde explains. “Or you can spin it on the table so that the person it points to goes next. A very adaptable thing, the champagne bottle!”

So, what other benefits are there in drinking champagne in the daily?

“Well, firstly, we were also able to verify the old saying in vino veritas! People are a lot more forthright, but perhaps their prononsh… pronouncsh… pronouncshiasch… um, schpee… speesch… uh, their talking, it becomes a bit unclear.” Dr. Drunkarde pauses, collects his thoughts and proceeds to rattle off a handful of other benefits as he ticks them off on his fingers, only missing once or twice.

“Second, the relaxing effect from the first glass actually makes people more alert and accurate. Third, the standup becomes more fun. Fourth, it pulls in stakeholders… lots of stakeholders, in fact many people you didn’t even know were stakeholders! Isn’t that great? Fifth, people find it easier to talk French, German and other languages they haven’t used since school. Sixth, your colleagues become more attractive, which in the software business is not to be underestimated,” he concludes the list.

“I could go on, but I’m getting a bit dry in the throat,” Dr. Drunkarde says and drains his glass, only to refill it from a handy unlabeled bottle. “Ahh…! An excellent double-blind, late 1990…? or possibly 1996…”

Hrm. How about other drinks, for example cremant, cava, prosecco or perhaps sekt? The eyes of Dr. Drunkarde bulge, and we are afraid that he will choke on his drink. “No no,” he exclaims after a minute, “we did an in-depth comparative analysis with several other drinks. Very in-depth, in fact. And plain sparkling wine simply does not compare with the real stuff. In the beginning people pop in as fast as they can, but you can see how disappointed they get.”

“Beer… well, people just start nipping off to the restroom. Chilled vodka does have some effect of course, and you can always use it to clean electronics. And the stronger drinks… yes, we reconstructed the Gagrakackan tzjin-anthony-ks by chemically analyzing the stains on a towel. However, local farmers called in to complain when we started serving it.”

Dr. Drunkarde again takes a deep sip from his glass before continuing. “The pan galactic gargle blaster turned out to take very long to prepare — it has to be served fresh — and then nobody was able to write any code for several weeks. The rehabilitation costs alone almost drove the company bankrupt. But it did do wonders for the old team spirit!”

We believe the doctor. How about downsides, then?

“Yes, unfortunately multi-site teams tend to suffer. There is something about enjoying champagne that does not transfer well over a teleconference. Another problem is that the meetings tend to drag out. One standup lasted almost twenty hours, people just refused to leave until the champagne stopped flowing, and by then it was too late. The last man standing was apparently still trying to update the sprint board at four thirty in the morning!”

Any final thoughts on the matter?

“Luckily the Daily Standup rules only ban coffee, not champagne,” Dr. Drunkarde says happily over another sip. “Abominable drink, coffee. Can’t stand it.”

Photo by Ron Dollete

A message from AstroSamantha

September 9, 2015/by Alessio Bragadini

We have followed in the past few months the mission of Europan astronaut Samantha “AstroSamantha” Cristoforetti, not only for the great scientific value of their work aboard the International Space Station but also because the mission number 42 led the crew to pose in full HHGG costumes for the mission poster. Also, Sam revealed herself as a proper geek with her sci-fi references and she brewed the first espresso in space while dressed as a Star Trek character.

Now Samantha, “adjusting back to being an Earthling on our beautiful spaceship Earth”, gives us the most important of messages: Don’t Panic.

Samantha Cristoforetti

Photo of ESA astronauts Luca Parmitano and Samantha Cristoforetti edited and published by Duncan Wilcox on Twitter.