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It's surprising that the general assumption is that it was manager's idea. It was actually idea of regular team member, who noticed a situation of tension betwe

by wlucjan 11y ago

It's surprising that the general assumption is that it was manager's idea. It was actually idea of regular team member, who noticed a situation of tension between team members and wondered how to get these tensions out to the light and resolve them peacefully. It was put to a try and team had all rights to drop it if they found it brings no useful information. Yet they kept it further. Nobody feels the pressure to feel happy - so-so and unhappy faces are common (btw Luc = myself and nobody here thinks about firing me for speaking out the truth). Everybody simply states his real mood and a reasons for it - ie. stuck with some problem for 3rd day with no feel of progress, having too many meetings on particular day, having some personal reasons, whatever. If it is in power of team to help with issue, it has been brought to the light and something can be done about it. That's all it is about - token for raising a discussion - not a thing to show off how happy team we are. Having it has not made our daily scrums any longer, yet we are able to start a day with better understanding of what is happening around us in the team and project and yet another opportunity to spot issues and deal with these together supporting each other (and on each retrospective team support is one of the strongest voted "winds in the sails"). I'd like also to thank Ben (brudgers). What he has wrote in his comments has the grasped the notion behind the idea and its implementation in DeSmart.

jonsterling 11y ago
If I share with somebody that I have an issue about something, I want to be sure that people will not conflate my legitimate complaint with my "mood". It's a really nice way to gas-light folks into submission: "The team has noticed that your mood has been pretty poor the last few weeks; is there anything we can do to lift your spirits? We're worried that your mood is affecting your work." <---- utterly horrifying Now, I can't say what's going on in your team, and probably at the moment, all is well and nobody is feeling victimized by this. But consider the fact that by binding up two (properly) separate concepts (reporting of blockers, etc. vs. poor emotional state, which is a PRIVATE matter), you will be ruling out a lot of potential employees in the future. Your team could decide to change the policy as they please, but if I came in for an interview and heard about this, I'd run as far as I could. EDIT: I have worked with people who suffer from depression and mental illness. I cannot imagine how stressful a work environment like this would be for some of these folks. I've been working at startups for years, and I have a thick skin—I can "deal with" the high pressure and culturally necessitated amalgamation of one's personal and professional life (even if I hate it), but there are a lot of really skilled workers for whom this is incredibly destructive.
- wlucjan 11y ago
  People in my team tend to express their mood in project context. Yet they find it valuable to know somebody has a bad day, so to not take his mood as something their actions had created. It has not raised anybodies anxiety or made them feel exhibitioning private matters they would like not to share. It also makes them feel comfortable they can express themselves in an open way. It may not work with all teams and all environments - yet my feeling is that such environments and teams have other stuff to work out to build space for comfortable exchange of opinions and feelings. There are many guides for effective feedback which base on expressing how actions or behaviour of a person you give feedback to impact feelings. So I guess it's worth exercising ;)

by wlucjan 11y ago

jonsterling 11y ago

If I share with somebody that I have an issue about something, I want to be sure that people will not conflate my legitimate complaint with my "mood". It's a really nice way to gas-light folks into submission: "The team has noticed that your mood has been pretty poor the last few weeks; is there anything we can do to lift your spirits? We're worried that your mood is affecting your work." <---- utterly horrifying Now, I can't say what's going on in your team, and probably at the moment, all is well and nobody is feeling victimized by this. But consider the fact that by binding up two (properly) separate concepts (reporting of blockers, etc. vs. poor emotional state, which is a PRIVATE matter), you will be ruling out a lot of potential employees in the future. Your team could decide to change the policy as they please, but if I came in for an interview and heard about this, I'd run as far as I could. EDIT: I have worked with people who suffer from depression and mental illness. I cannot imagine how stressful a work environment like this would be for some of these folks. I've been working at startups for years, and I have a thick skin—I can "deal with" the high pressure and culturally necessitated amalgamation of one's personal and professional life (even if I hate it), but there are a lot of really skilled workers for whom this is incredibly destructive.

wlucjan 11y ago
People in my team tend to express their mood in project context. Yet they find it valuable to know somebody has a bad day, so to not take his mood as something their actions had created. It has not raised anybodies anxiety or made them feel exhibitioning private matters they would like not to share. It also makes them feel comfortable they can express themselves in an open way. It may not work with all teams and all environments - yet my feeling is that such environments and teams have other stuff to work out to build space for comfortable exchange of opinions and feelings. There are many guides for effective feedback which base on expressing how actions or behaviour of a person you give feedback to impact feelings. So I guess it's worth exercising ;)