Not so long time ago I talked about launching a new Scrum team. Today I’d like to share some ideas on how to get to know the members of your team better. When teams are first forming, they often consist of people who have never worked together before. In order to work effectively together, team members need to understand each other and have trust. To do this, they need to get to know each other beyond the office.
So, how can you accomplish this, especially in a remote work environment? I have quite a bit of experience in this area, as my teams are mostly distributed and work from different parts of the world. Let’s take a look at some options. I didn’t come up with these myself; I tried and experimented with what I found in various resources, and now I’m happy to share my experience and talk about what has a good effect in my teams.
One of the simpliest ways to get to know team members is to organize meetings. Meetings can be various, from small coffee breaks to large events. The idea is to give team members the opportunity to get to know each other outside of the work environment. This will help them understand each other better and create informal relationships that will help them work more effectively.
Usually, I hold a one-and-a-half hour informal team meeting: I choose time, send out an invitation. For this meeting I prepare an exercise that helps to start a conversation.
My two favorite exercises are:
- Two truths and one lie. The idea is that each team member should tell about himself two truthful facts and one fictional one. Then the others try to guess which of the three facts is fictional. This helps to start a lively discussion, each one tells why he made such a choice, and the author tells about each of his facts, questions are asked to him and thus communication between team members becomes informal and they find common interests. How I prepare: I draw frames with names, three stickers, and dots for selection. Next to the frames, I always place an exercise instruction:
- Choose a color block for yourself, write your name on it.
- On the stickers, write 2 truthful facts about yourself and one fictional. 3 min individually
- Vote for the sticker of the team members, on which, in your opinion, the fictional fact is written. 3 min individually
- Discussing everyone’s choice, and then each person tells which fact was fictional. 10 min altogether
The timing is approximate, usually it take at least an hour for this exercise in team consisting of 7-8 members.
2. Answer the questions. The essence of this exercise is the same as the first one, only the form is slightly different. I also prepare frames with names, questions, and a place to write down the answers. After everyone has written everything down, I ask each team member to tell more about what they wrote, and others ask questions or comment. I don’t write an instruction for this exercise, but if you want, you can add it. This exercise also takes at least an hour for 7-8 members. Questions can be different in meaning and quantity. Choose the ones that seem appropriate to you in the situation you are in.
Getting to know the members of your new Scrum team is an important step in creating an effective team. Organizing meetings, using games and training exercises, all of this can help team members better understand each other and work together more effectively.
Hope my experience will help you.
What methods and exercises do you use to get to know members of your distributed team better? I would be very happy if you share your experience.
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