Category: Scrum Team

Categories
Scrum Team

Aim for nothing, you hit nothing

Photo by Afif Kusuma on Unsplash

I was watching the movie Shang-Chi and The Legend of The Ten Rings (Movie, 2021) | Official Trailer, Cast, Release Date | Marvel on the airplane from India to Germany and there is one scene where a lady talks to her protégé and tells her “Aim for nothing, you hit nothing”

In this case, it is about a person who floats around in life with no perceived goal. This person goes on to learn archery and save the day by slaying a dragon.

In our projects, we have Developers working on Sprints (especially Agile projects).

Have you seen Sprints with no Goals?

These Sprints lead nowhere because the Developers do not feel that they need to aim for something. By aiming for nothing they are prepared to hit nothing.

Start small and define that Sprint Goal (You can make it SMART step by step at later stages)

  • Aim for some Sprint Goals and you might reach a few the first time.
  • The second time you will notice the Sprint Goals getting measurable and SMARTer.
  • The third time you will start asking yourself how did I not do it in the first place?

Are you ready to aim for a Sprint Goal and bring the dragon to the Sprint Review party?

Categories
Management 3.0 Scrum Team

Moving Motivators

Session from Agile Speakers Meetup

We played the Moving Motivators game in the Agile Speakers Meetup session last time to understand our intrinsic motivators.

It was nice to use the Management 3.0 template directly from Miro.

We took some time and mapped our motivators one a x-axis with Most Important on the left and Least Important on the right.

We then discussed the top three motivators and top least interesting motivators for one participant in the session.

What we learnt from top three motivators?

  • Acceptance had become important over time in the career of the participant. How sometimes the Impostor Syndrome creeps in.
  • Relatedness and being relevant when a person in Senior in a team and hopes that the team members still find their input useful
  • Freedom to be able to work on things that fire up some passion. Get help from team members when needed

What we learnt from the least interesting motivators?

  • Curiosity kills the cat. Sometimes it can be a snake pit taking away focus
  • Goal sometimes is important like in being able to leave behind wisdom for the next generation
  • Order sometimes brings out the tendency of being allergic to rules and hating bureacracy

This exercise helps us understand the intrinsic motivators of the participants and taking a break from the extrinsic motivators like position and financial compensation.

Reference:

Moving Motivators (CHAMPFROGS): Intrinsic Motivation Game – Management 3.0 (management30.com)