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Things my team is doing during... Whatever this WFH time is:
1) When sprint planning, we chose a "pandemic tax" percent and reduced our estimated capacity by that much
1) When sprint planning, we chose a "pandemic tax" percent and reduced our estimated capacity by that much
2) we've shared our stress levels in stand up for a while, so we know how to treat each other and offer help. Rather than a number out of 10 or weather, we're using backgrounds to interpret moods (a gathering space battle, walls closing in, a beach)
3) a long standing conference call for hanging out in / mob troubleshooting
4) encouraging them to adjust their schedule as needed, just be communicative about xl breaks (I've been taking a long lunch+jog from ~11-1, & I make a point of mentioning it)
4) encouraging them to adjust their schedule as needed, just be communicative about xl breaks (I've been taking a long lunch+jog from ~11-1, & I make a point of mentioning it)
I'll add more in thread as we come up with them
5) Socially distanced 1:1s - not everyone on my team feels comfortable with these, but for those who want it, we meet at a park (masked & at least 6' apart). Stacking these back to back means they get to see other teammates before/after
6) I've encouraged people to work from wherever - especially important for folks who live alone - the positive change from going out of state to stay with family from one of my team has been astounding!
7) We had a midnight incident and afterwards several teammates told me it was the most like a team they'd felt like since quarantine, so we're going to do some virtual game days (think D&D for SRE explosions)
8) *Constantly* checking in and encouraging folks to take a break or a day off when the stress is getting to them. One person I send 3-4 emojis (
) and ask which he's feeling, and if it's not good, ask "if I told you to take a 20 minute walk would you do it?"
) and ask which he's feeling, and if it's not good, ask "if I told you to take a 20 minute walk would you do it?"
Also, let's revisit those original ideas and see how they've panned out/evolved:
1a) we've been in this long enough that our pandemic tax is baked into our capacity estimates, but now anticipating availability is hard (family emergencies, personal days - these are way more than the beforetimes) so I pad a few days off for unplanned days off
2a) I add "bonus questions" to stand up to get a lil' extra bonding/human interaction (what movie have we probably not seen but should? what food do you love that others hate? etc)
3a) the long standing zoom room didn't end up getting used much, so we removed it, but the team still joins a hangout/slack/zoom for pairing/mobbing on the regular
4a) Really hammering it home that I don't care if you feel like working til 2am as long as you send in an async stand up, let us know when we can expect you to be back online, and aren't working *extra* hours, just weird hours. (I did not stick with the running :( )
