What's the most interesting practice you've witnessed or heard about?

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

It's the end of the year. Let's take a look back and share the most interesting or unique practices we've seen companies or teams try. Maybe it'll spark inspiration for our members :)

Bonus points if you can share the impact of those practices.

[Daniel Eads · Accepted solution]

Oooh ooh, me me! Since I haven't been keeping up on industry literature, I'll just share what I think is one of the most helpful Atlassian practices to me personally.

Practice: Let's call it Podcast Proliferation. Adding to Teamistry which I looooove, there's Work Check which I don't think @Christine P. Dela Rosa would mention because - spoiler - she hosts it! It's awesome! Atlassian also has a couple other internal items in podcast form that I consume regularly. Plus, some employee resources that would normally be recorded Zoom calls are also offered as audio formats for podcast-style listening.

Impact: I can use time I'd normally spend at work, sitting at my desk, to bike or take a walk and keep up on company goings-on (or get better ideas to impact my normal work)! I still get to digest the information but am more focused on listening since I'm not passively checking email on the side, AND I'm more productive the next few hours because I've had some excellent exercise.

This doesn't have to be every piece of content you send out to your teammates. But if the audience is significant, and the content doesn't need interaction - ask yourself - could you put this out as audio-only and encourage people to go outside while they listen to it?

[Andy Gladstone]

@Daniel Eads this is an amazing concept - pre-recording content or meetings so that they can be available on demand and in a format that reduces some of the Zoom fatigue we are all feeling. As an avid podcast listener (I have a one hour train commute to work each day), the power of being able to decide what to listen to, when to listen to it, and whether it is at 1.25x/1.5x/2.0x speed gives me the freedom to cover more ground in less time, but still absorb the message and content.

This really dove tails nicely to an article that I recently read about Walking Meetings. Your post has inspired me to try out recording some content that really does not have to be time-bound or cause the consumer to be desk bound to interact with. Thanks!

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

@Daniel Eads you're an ambassador! 🤩 🤩 🤩

But yes, we often don't really think about video fatigue alts but audio options are truly a great way to disseminate information in a way that's flexible for everyone. 

And to your point @Andy Gladstone , walking meetings (in addition to the above point) are also a good change of pace to give us much needed collaboration variety.

[Jack Brickey]

I do like the idea of this but I need to experience it firsthand to ground myself in how I might be able to successfully implement in my world. Some things for me to ponder.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa · Accepted solution]

On this episode of Planet Money, "No shortage of labor stories," I learned of a training company that was worried about retaining its staff this year. They saw trend of "The Great Resignation" and didn't want their staff to leave. As employers should always be thinking about.

Unique practice: to address that situation, the company told their staff at the start of the summer to think about 1) how much value they wanted to give to the company and 2) how much they wanted to get paid for that. 

Impact: it worked! They retained their staff and were able to negotiate flexible work schedules based on what staff wanted to commit to and respective compensation for that work. 

So radical! I'm so happy it's working for that company.

[Marjorie]

It's great when something works as planned!

[Andy Gladstone · Accepted solution]

Sharing a failure here. 

We tried to launch a quasi-book club at my company. We invested in a number of business skills development books and set up a physical library in our HQ. I agonized over the best books for the initial launch - and made sure to buy two of each, since I assumed people would want to buddy up and tag team some reading.

We created a Confluence page to track book check-outs, and gamified it by inviting anyone to submit a short article for our internal newsletter about a practice, idea or comment they found inspiring, with Amazon gift cards issued to anyone that participates. (Yes just for participating!)

We announced the program and it was followed but utter silence. In the 2+ years since this idea was launched we received a sum total of (2) submissions - from the same employee. I won't disclose how many books were ever checked out - but I am secretly hoping some people 'borrowed' without signing them out!

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

No joke. We did the same thing where we also used Confluence to track! More than once. We even had books on individual people's desks, and if placed there, it was assumed you could borrow those books.

Our result? Same as yours @Andy Gladstone 😂..

[Andy Gladstone]

@Christine P. Dela Rosa wow. I feel a lot less insignificant now. Thanks for sharing.

I guess you can lead a horse to a book, but can't make them read!

[Bill Sheboy]

Yes, and...after several failed attempts of "book clubs" and "lending libraries" at places I have worked over the years, I changed my approach:

• find books which I find short/valuable, or readable/usable in small bites (e.g. with chapter-scale guidance),
• buy a dozen copies,
• give them away to interested parties with a personalized note, and 
• wait.

Sometimes people come back for discussions and other recommendations, or even pass the books on to others.  Sometimes nothing happens.

[Andy Gladstone]

@Bill Sheboy what was the most successful, dare I say viral, book you ever introduced?

[Bill Sheboy]

Hi, Andy!  I would say it is tie between two books, based upon audience.  I've given away dozens of each.

• Among team coaches: Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen.  Following the patterns of Norman Kerth and R. Brian Stanfield, this one is all practical how-tos.
• For those not quite getting agile mindsets: The Nature of Software Development: Keep It Simple, Make It Valuable, Build It Piece by Piece, by Ron Jeffries.

[Andy Gladstone]

Thanks @Bill Sheboy 

[Josh Costella · Accepted solution]

Virtual happy hours.... remember those? LOL

I think those of us who tried it all had the best of intentions but it's amazing how much of a difference it made when it came to not actually being near your friends/co-workers. 

However, I will say virtual escape rooms were pretty cool. Being hands on would always be preferred but it was great to experience it with my team. We still had a lot of fun.

And that's the most important part, right? Make the most of it and try to have fun. 

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

OK I'll bite. 1) What is a virtual escape room? And 2) at what stage do you bring your team to one?