Our Agile Celebration: “The Blessing”
Posted on February 1, 2010
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It started with release Beta .0-something. Being the agile development shop that we are, we wanted to ship to our customer as early as possible. Everything had to go: software, firmware, documentation, and early proto-hardware devices. Sunday was the day we were pulling all the artifacts together for a hand-delivered Monday morning flight.
Sunday afternoon. I arrived after a 50 mile bike ride and proceeded to crash on a couch. The power went out in the building. I fell asleep.
Next thing I know, the client engagement manager arrived. Then, her boss, then mine, all with kids in tow. Chaos ensued.
The client engagement manger was packing up devices, meters, firmware, programming tools, basically everything she needed, but in reality, had no idea how to use once she arrived at the client site (but had us back at HQ to walk her through anything needed). We did everything we could to make sure it worked as-designed, on-site, upon arrival.
It was then that I called everyone to a meeting.
We sat down in a tight circle. We calmed our bodies through simple breathing exercises. We lifted our spines and hearts. You could feel the collective energy relax. The children became quiet. Some crawled into our respective laps. The slow, relaxed breathing continued. We said a few words in honor of this momentous event. It seemed to work. Everyone left the building with a calmness and confidence that we would succeed. The outcome of that release was all good customer feedback. (from what I remember).
That was almost two years ago. The tradition continues. Every time we release, we call the entire company together for “The Blessing”. It’s a simple, yet powerful acknowledgement of our achievements, our struggles, our goals, and our past, our present, and the light towards our future.
We usually sit on the floor together, knees almost touching. We calm ourselves through breathing in goodness, and breathing out negative thoughts. It’s quiet and peaceful. Our nervous systems can do nothing except to calm ourselves after the always stressful challenge to get to the release. All we hear is each others breath. We relax our faces, our jaws, our necks. We roll back our shoulders and open our hearts. We acknowledge that we are all one, and that this product release would not have happened without each other.
Some peaceful words are spoken by anyone who wishes to share. It’s an open forum. Our lips have a slight upward curve, as we all become proud of the work we created.
This event is our celebration. We laugh about it in reflection, as we go home and tell our spouses and family about our day. No where in my career have we had such an open environment that we come together and bless our accomplishments as a company. Everyone: Marketing, Bus Dev, Partners, Client Engagement, Support, Product Management, Engineering, Operations, Sr. Management, we all participate. It’s the pinnacle. It’s the goal, it’s our entire companies livelihood, and everyone participates.
This is how we celebrate. It’s tradition. It brings us all together, relaxes our souls, bonds us as a team, and honors our collective work.
This week, we’ll bless another release with our tradition. Celebrate!
PS: yes, we drink beer too…just not at the same moment!
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