Eventyr

Communication: Toilet Stories

One day, toward the end of a long brainstorming meeting, we came up with the idea of putting up little one-page stories, called episodes, in bathroom stalls discussing new and interesting testing techniques. Somebody immediately called it “Testing on the Toilet,” and the idea stuck.

We formed a team of editors, encouraged authors to write lots of episodes and then bribed Nooglers with books and T-shirts to put up episodes every week. The first few episodes touched off a flurry of feedback from all corners of the campus. We received praise and flames, but mostly what we heard was that people were bored and wanted us to hurry and publish the next episode.

Eventually, the idea became part of the company culture and even a company joke, as in, “Excuse me, I need to go read about testing.” That’s when we realized that we had what we needed: a way to get our message out.

The Google Way: Give Engineers Room - New York Times.

Swearing at work

"Regular swearing at work can help boost team spirit among staff, allowing them to express better their feelings as well as develop social relationships, according to a study by researchers.  Yehuda Baruch, a professor of management at the University of East Anglia, and graduate Stuart Jenkins studied the use of profanity in the workplace and assessed its implications for managers."
Swearing at work boosts team spirit (Yahoo! News) (Via Tom).

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From the paper 'Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture: When anti-social becomes social and incivility is acceptable' by Yehuda Baruch and Stuart Jenkins (published in Leadership & Organization Development Journal):

"Social swearing provides stress release for individuals, and helps to develop group
norms and cohesion. This subsequently improves both individual and group well
being. Conversely, annoyance swearing tends to increase stress for individuals, and
hinders positive group norms and cohesion, hampering both individuals’ and groups’
well being."

I'm very curious to look through my data for examples of these two.  I suspect I'll find some more lovely examples. 

I'm looking forward to reading this paper thoroughly, and hope I find time to follow up this reference:

"Taking this point to the extreme, Wajnryb (2003) offers advice for executives who
have to make staff redundant: “If you’re worried about which laid-off employee is
going to show up with a semi-automatic and shoot up the office, be wary of the
non-swearers”."

Positive Experience Questions

• What’s been your best experience working at this company?
• When do you have the most fun at work ?
• Who do you enjoy working with the most here? What do you like about them?
• Which manager do you admire the most in this company? What do you admire about that person?
• What’s the greatest thing your manager has done for his/her people?

Questions to ask in interviews (Via Tom Nixon)

Agile Fun Night

My 'Agile Fun Night' appeared to manage to be true to its name, and generally seemed appreciated by the people I ran it for. 

I facilitated a version of 'Extreme Hour', with a warm up of 'pair drawing'.    Photos here. 

Tom summarises it very well.  I certainly enjoyed myself.  I wish that there had been more time for reflection on the process, interaction and achievements for both activities, but hopefully I will draw that out next time I run the session.

Of course, it just makes me increasingly tempted to set myself up as a consultant to help pay for my existence as a student...

The Social Network Benefit

"By analyzing patent citations, they were able to show that companies can benefit from a reverse flow of knowledge that results when an engineer or other technical expert moves on. Why? Because, according to Rosenkopf, there are social networks that transcend companies and allow the employees left behind to gain access to the knowledge being generated at their colleague's new place of business. She is not talking about corporate spying, but rather the flow of ideas and information among professionals who work in the same field. Their findings, she concludes, "call into question the conventional wisdom that losing employees means losing knowledge."

Other studies have looked at the opposite phenomenon—"inbound mobility"—documenting the transfer of knowledge that comes with hiring. When people are viewed strictly as "human capital," the departure of an employee results in the former employer's loss of that person's intellect and talent, and the corresponding gain of those same valuable attributes for the company doing the hiring. "The belief has been that if you lose an employee, that's a bad thing for you," Rosenkopf says. Even common lingo—that a company is losing a worker to another firm—implies that there is nothing good that could possibly result.

But Rosenkopf says the picture is different when employees are viewed in terms of "social capital." Workers aren't just silos of knowledge and skill unto themselves, but rather are part of social networks of workers from various firms who talk about what's going on in their field. Those networks may involve formal arrangements, such as strategic alliances, but they may also be informal, involving professional conferences, e-mail exchanges, common blog sites or even after-hours socializing."

The Social Network Benefit

Interesting concept realignment.  'Losing staff' may be a benefit not a loss after all... 

The emphasis on the value of social networking is inherent to this: "In other words, whom you know does matter. On a lower level, inner-office networks play a role in how information flows around a company. The corporate organization chart tells only so much. Who chats with whom around the office and whom people go to for advice also matter."