{"id":10116,"date":"2020-07-29T20:06:21","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T19:06:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/?p=10116"},"modified":"2020-10-08T11:02:58","modified_gmt":"2020-10-08T10:02:58","slug":"inception-and-team-happiness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/inception-and-team-happiness\/","title":{"rendered":"Inception and team happiness"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some time ago, I did facilitate a final retrospective for a team that has worked together for more than a year. Two of my passions are inceptions and retrospectives. So, during the retrospective, I was very interested on hearing more insights about that team view on inceptions.<\/p>\n

Being a retrospective facilitator is very rewarding. Besides helping out some team, you have the opportunity to listen to many valuable insights. Such as the insights I will share on this post.<\/p>\n

As it was a long period retrospective, amongst other activities, I used the peaks and valley retrospective activity<\/a>. On it, each person could share their personal ups and down during the overall project timeframe.<\/p>\n

Please find below the activity result.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I am not going to disclose all the conversation about the ups and downs, but I will tell you about three moments that caught my attention: inception 1, MVP released, and inception 2. Go back to the image above and try to guess where these moments were.<\/p>\n

And<\/p>\n

Down<\/p>\n

Below<\/p>\n

I<\/p>\n

Share<\/p>\n

The<\/p>\n

Same<\/p>\n

Image<\/p>\n

But<\/p>\n

Now<\/p>\n

With<\/p>\n

Indications<\/p>\n

For<\/p>\n

These<\/p>\n

Three<\/p>\n

Moments:<\/p>\n

Inception1,<\/p>\n

MVP released<\/p>\n

And<\/p>\n

Inception 2.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As an inception facilitator, I saw these many times: teams get happier with an inception workshop<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Inception does help with alignment about the work, about how the team will collaborate. But the inception major benefit is the increase of the team happiness.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The inception biggest benefit is much more than the generated artefacts and plans. It is the relationship improvement and the collective happiness by the inception participants.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Another interesting insight was about the MVP release. For this team, a very successful MVP release. And I have had the opportunity to see this pattern on many teams; the teams for which I facilitated an inception and was able to follow up on their product releases.<\/p>\n

The inception usually brings great happiness and a clear plan<\/strong>. But after that, the team happiness might go down. This is a common pattern. It will reduce a bit until the next big moment for getting together and celebrate: the successful release.<\/p>\n

So, by working with MVP the time between the inception and the successful release is short.<\/strong> This is one of the reasons I prefer a Lean Inception<\/a> \u2013 which define a plan for the MVP \u2013 over an inception that generate a large release plan.<\/p>\n

And yet one more insight I got form this team retrospective. After the successful MVP release, things did change quite a bit in their work context. They have waited a little too long until inception 2, when the team happiness and morale went up again<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here I see two different scenarios:<\/p>\n

1. Team releases the MVP; the context does not change significantly<\/strong>. So, the team remain on their high-level plan from the inception 1. They keep on working on the next product increment release. (hopefully, another celebration party ahead!).
\n2. Team releases the MVP; the context does change quite a bit.<\/strong> The team and the work get a little confusing. It is time to call for another inception. Be aware of the valley, and try scheduling the next inception, fast!<\/p>\n

I hope you also enjoy this team retrospective insights and keep your team happiness in the peaks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some time ago, I did facilitate a final retrospective for a team that has worked together for more than a year. Two of my passions are inceptions and retrospectives. So, during the retrospective, I was very interested on hearing more insights about that team view on inceptions. Being a retrospective facilitator is very rewarding. Besides […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2155,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1925],"tags":[],"inception_activities":[],"colaboradores":[],"class_list":["post-10116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lean-inception-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2155"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10116"},{"taxonomy":"inception_activities","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/inception_activities?post=10116"},{"taxonomy":"colaboradores","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/caroli.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/colaboradores?post=10116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}