Collocation – how Happily are we doing it?

The Agile Manifesto values ‘Individuals and interactions over processes and tools’. Great importance is given to open and frequent communication in any Agile methodology such as Scrum. And a very effective way to bring it about is collocation. Webster’s defines this as 'the act or result of placing or arranging together'. Team members are brought together and placed in physical proximity in a room or closed area to break down the proverbial walls and foster camaraderie resulting in much higher synergies. A lot of studies show that collocation does hike productivity. Kane Mar at Scrumology writes about this here and also mentions a detailed paper that measured how radical collocation helped increase productivity in a renowned automobile company.

Most of you have tried this and probably reached a steady state where you are at peace with where you sit, in how much space, next to whom etc. and can finally concentrate on your work. But we all remember what an uphill task it was. So imagine you are used to sitting in your own fair sized cubicle, you’ve got your stuff around you making you happy – the wife and kiddies smiling from a silver frame, glimpses of that Hawaiian vacation, the memorable Disney cruise, a nice bamboo or fern you gave a home to, coveted books for ready reference, snacks stashed away in that bottom drawer, maybe you even make your own coffee at your desk (yes) – you get the idea!! Then you are suddenly transported to a 12x15 ft room, with no windows (shudder), shared with 10-12 people and a bunch of whiteboards for walls. It’s a tough transition for anyone, and can rattle the best among us.

Some of the typical teething problems newly collocated teams face are –

-          Lack of personal space, sudden proximity to a lot of people

-          No ‘privacy’ and ‘under the radar’ all the time

-          Lots of discussions that may not be relevant to you leading to noise

-          Lots of chit chat and trivial chatter – enjoyable to some, others, not   so much

-          Put ‘on the spot’ several times a day, need to give constant and instantaneous input on any questions

-          Risk of infections, people picking noses, sneezing on you etc. ( sad but true)

-          People making personal calls incessantly etc. etc.

               

The list can be a mile long, but as your neighbor becomes more familiar to you, you don’t notice the clashing elbows so much. Your sprint reviews show you how much work you are getting done in a miraculously low amount of time, and you get so used to thinking out loud, extrapolating and constantly questioning everything that it becomes second nature.

As trust builds up, people come up with their grievances at retrospectives and eventually this leads to better and more spacious workspaces, common team rules, core hours, off hours etc. making you happier.

I have faced this trial by fire ( what else to call it?) myself several times and would like to share my experience and my two penny worth. Here are some small ways to ease the transition into collocation and minimize some of the resistance and problems people face –

• Food, food and more food!! Yes, lots of talk means lots of munchies coming on, and any customer that provides it is a hero. Here is a blog post that talks about it.

• Team events where people get to mingle – maybe a day out having fun, or Happy Hour or an evening at the bowling alley or movie night. This gives folks a chance to interact away from the office environment and connect at a personal level.

• Name your team – cheesy? Not really! Be it the Lakers or Man United or the Kings XI, each team has its own identity, values and reputation to live up to. This certainly fires up the troops and they are ready to take on any battle (backlog) that comes their way.

• Team Rules – some basic stuff like no cellphones during meetings, core hours, person missing the Scrum gets Donuts, work remotely when sick etc. – anything that makes sense to you as a group.

• Information radiators – loads of whiteboards, flipcharts, colored pins, markers, post its, index cards, colored dots to portray your backlog, your work in process, your work ‘done’, burndown charts etc. etc. Frequent looks at what you have achieved so far is a HUGE motivator.

• Fun stuff – who said you can’t have a bit of fun? Dart boards, mini baskets, stress busting gizmos, silly toys – anything that lightens the mood and makes you laugh.

• Headphones – a great way to tune out some of the ambient noise and focus on something. They can also indicate that you would like not to be disturbed for a while.

• ‘Do Not Disturb’ or Silent zones or enclaves close to your team space, for those times when you just need to be heads down and work on something by yourself.

• Windows!!! This may not be possible all the time, but they are really your window to the world, especially when you work in a wooded campus with tall trees, really tall trees, with leaves turning in the fall, and snow sticking to the bare branches in winter…ok, I digress, but anyone will agree, even a small window is better than no windows!

This list can go on and on too. This is what is my experience and what made sense to the several teams I worked with, and this definitely did not happen overnight. It took a lot of angst, tears, patience, retrospectives and last but not the least, Scrum Masters and Agile coaches who carried our voice over to the top, to the folks who dish out goodies like prime retail space.

And you will need to be bold too. You will need to speak up, bond and come together as a unit and decide what spells utopia to you! What’s going to make your workspace so warm and fuzzy that you will feel like the Energizer bunny?

So how are you handling collocation? Are you still running the rapids or in your happy place? Whether a Scrum Master or a team member, how are you dealing with resistance from your team and peers?

This post deals with collocation for teams that are mostly in the same location. How do distributed teams handle this? Thats another topic for another day.

Daily stand-ups and the 15 minute challenge

The daily stand-up or daily Scrum is an essential feature of Scrum. It requires that everyone be present in person, or call in. It is a time boxed event which means it has a time limit and cannot exceed 15 minutes!

There are three essential questions every team member answers in the stand-up – what you did yesterday, what you plan to do today, and if you have any barriers or obstacles. The meeting takes place at the same time and same place every day to make it easy and ‘automatic’. Some teams do this at the beginning of the day, so that they have a roadmap ready for the rest of the day. Some teams prefer the evening when they have a good idea of what they achieved that day, and want to have an action plan ready for the next day. The time could also be determined by time limitations team members may have such as some people being in different time zones.

The Scrum Master acts as a facilitator here and makes sure that everyone sticks to the format. Any potential lengthy discussions are deferred for later. These kind of design discussions are generally held immediately after the Scrum. The SM also documents any new barriers on the board and has his/her work cut out. The Scrum Master may give his/her own update too explaining how s/he worked on particular barriers or concerns the team had.

One practice I have seen followed is that team members move the task cards during the stand-up. This is supposed to give a person a sense of accountability as they move a card from the ‘not started’ to the ‘in progress’ section. Similarly team members feel a sense of achievement when they move a card from ‘in process’ to ‘done’. Many coaches encourage this physical act instead of making updates in some online tool.

Distributed teams can prove to be a challenge for the daily Scrum. If there are only 2-3 persons in a closer time zone, they generally call in. If there is a large team (5+) in a far-off time zone such as another continent, they can have their own Scrum locally, and email updates to the Product Owner and the rest of the team.

The daily stand-up ensures that the team ‘inspects and adapts’ on a regular basis. Everyone is aware of the general updates and what is happening on the team, and how their progress or lack of it may be affecting others or causing impediments in others’ work. E.g delay in coding a certain feature may be blocking the testing story.

The information gained in the daily stand-up exposes potential and current issues and empowers the team to adapt themselves to complete the Sprint goal.