Friday, January 13, 2017

Overnight Changes

There is a discussion that I keep going back to, begging to be unloaded off my mind. This morning I said the words: "It's like I joined a different project this week". There's been a sudden change in the atmosphere and in the things we do, and thinking back the last week makes me realize some changes can be really fast.

In a week, my team transformed from a team working on its own components to a team that works with other teams on shared goals. We transformed from a team that seeks product owner acceptance and prioritization into a team that checks priorities but works actively to identify the next steps with one another. And we changed from a team that was quiet and not sharing, into a team that talks and plans together.

I can see three changes in the short timeframe:

  1. We did our first end-to-end demo across two teams and it resulted in a lot of positive reinforcement of customer value over team output. 
  2. Our product owner moved out of the team room and took a step back leaving more room for the team to decide on things. 
  3. A new-old developer joined the team. 
We weren't bad before, but this week has been amazing. We've accomplished a lot. We've learned a lot. 

Experiences this week remind me again on how changes in the environment change the system. And I'm delighted to be in a place that is willing to play with the environment to find even better ways to work together.