“When was the last time that you did something different?” This is one of the questions we asked our participants during our interactive SAP development kick-off Silicon Valley session.
“And what did you learn from this experiment?” was the question that helped to reflect on the outcome of doing something different. Plenty of discussions between attendees started from this impulse and we connected colleagues who didn’t know each other before.
The outcome of an experiment can be a success or a failure. You never know before because it’s – well – an experiment. However, what is sure is that you will learn from it, from the actions you do for the first time – much more than from more traditional choices like best practices.
Hence, it’s good as a project team or as a group to take the time to reflect on how you achieved that milestone or that sprint outcome. First, it helps also to become aware of your experiments, the practices you used or the mistakes you did.
Jurgen Appelo introduces an effective approach in his book “Managing for Happiness”. The “Celebration Grid” offers an easy-to-use canvas that we have adopted as a team for after-action reviews.
What on earth does that mean in practice? On the picture below, you see how anybody can draw the canvas on a whiteboard and use it for a project milestone reflection.
At our development kick-off in Karlsruhe, all learning providers for development got their act together and ran the show for the first time as one unified team. We also worked collectively afterward to reflect on what we have learned from running the show together. As the teams of learning providers are spread across the organization and locations, we had to do a virtual celebration grid session with Zoom.
I prepared the canvas with Mural. After explaining how Mural works for the few first-time users, each participant wrote his/her points in the “brainwriting” area at the bottom. For me it’s always important that everybody has the possibility to contribute content, so brainwriting is a good starter. Then one after the other shared his/her virtual sticky notes and we constantly ping-ponged between mistakes, experiments, and practices on the celebration grid canvas.
The canvas helps to instill a culture of continuous learning. It contributes to share openly about successful and failed outcomes.
And what about the “celebration” part of the grid? Well, it’s not exactly like an Oscar coronation. I’ve used an air-powered rocket launcher (see featured image) as a symbol for celebration during my team meetings. Thomas, the scrum master for our deliverables, has done much better: he organized a celebration event with pizzas and drinks for all the involved colleagues.
How is your experience to learn from your experiments? Please share via comments or contact me!
Now it’s time for you to celebrate: I offer you access to the Celebration Grid template on Mural. Please send me a message and I forward you the link.
