Eventyr

Not So Fortunate

Hmm, so yesterday I experimented with something new in a retrospective. It didn't quite work out as hoped.

The idea was that by using fortune cookies you could draw similarities between your experience of the iteration, and by generating them draw out suggestions and advice for the coming one.  It would have the benefit of being a bit of fun, something to get people talking and sharing.

Sadly, it seems that the quality of fortune cookies in Brighton is slightly different than I would have preferred.  While the more traditional 'Confucius says' style may have worked (for all the clichés would have generated humour), I had not counted on the slightly modernised ones that I purchased.

They ranged from the bizarre, to the slightly insulting, and then on to the strongly suggestive and slightly risqué.  Certainly not suitable topics for group discussion, although the humour involved almost made up for it. 

Intriguingly, the 'not so business-like' style of discussion that this method engendered was really noticeable for strongly persisting during the following group lunch.  I hadn't previously considered this effect, and this has certainly given me some really intriguing threads of thought to follow.

Advice: Check your expectations before you hand out fortune cookies.

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* My sample two fortunes said "The colour blue will be lucky for you" (semi-appropriate for me, but not so useful for reflection) and "You are not a complete idiot, some parts of you are missing" (which was just charming really).

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)

Typing to Stereotyping

But there’s one thing that keeps them at arm’s length: “The researcher,” “The Sysadmin,” “The OSS Developer,” “The CS Student.” It is common practice for personas to be given these kinds of user type labels but that practice diminishes our ability to empathize.

It might seem like a small thing, but the moment these folks are typed they become members of a class, and their identities are now of being in those groups — and you start referring to that persona as “the Sysadmin” and not “Donald.” It doesn’t take much to go from typing to stereotyping–”Sysadmins want these kinds of features”–and once that happens, empathy is lost.

A little thing about personas (Via Tom)

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...

Wiki'd Writing

Starting this week, more than a million business professionals and scholars, including faculty, students, alumni, and newsletter recipients from two of the nation’s most prestigious graduate schools of business, the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, will receive messages inviting them to collectively write and edit the book, tentatively titled We Are Smarter Than Me (www.wearesmarter.org).

The book’s content will examine how Web 2.0 technologies such as social networks, wikis and blogs can benefit the business enterprise. Additionally, MIT and Wharton will also have access to the contributions, and expect to conduct and publish primary research on whether collective projects like this can help guide the future of industry in the areas of customer service, product innovation, market research, and sales.

We Are Smarter - Official Press Release - 11/16/2006

Hmm. Shall be interesting to see how this project turns out.  It would be nice if it ended up as something more interesting than just a marketing stunt.

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."