Thursday, November 22, 2012

Appreciations

Here it is Thanksgiving morning 2012.  Of course I woke up at 5:00 AM when I had an opportunity to sleep in.  I meandered through all of my RSS feeds.  And of course I stumbled upon this gem of a post by Christopher Avery.  By the way Mr. Avery is an awesome person to chat with.  I had the absolute pleasure of talking with him at the Rally On conference this year.

On Friday November 16 I attended Keep Austin Agile Conference put together by Agile Austin.  I learned quite a few things at this conference, but there was one thing I had not heard before regarding retrospectives.  Earl Everett in his talk on "Retrospective Tips, Tricks, and Traps" he mentioned the use of appreciations during retrospectives.

Honestly I think it is a great idea.  What I immediately struggled with is how many appreciations or the quality of the appreciations.  Also I had some thoughts on the emotions of appreciations.  I concluded that I do not show my appreciation enough, so I will incorporate appreciations more into my daily routine both at work and at home.

Christopher Avery added more controversy to my thought process by stating "Reflect on your ratio of potential vs. actual acknowledgment".  I completely agree that each day we should reflect and I need to add a list of appreciations to that reflection, but how many of your appreciations should truly be acknowledged.  I have been thinking all morning as to what ratio would be good for me.  I keep thinking my ratio of actual appreciations should be low and strategically delivered.  I am leaning toward attempting to do something like take action on my top two appreciations for each day regardless of how many potential appreciations I can come up with.  Is that enough appreciations?  Maybe not, but it is certainly a start.

Another thought I have is that in my list of potential appreciations there may be reoccurring recipients.  Perhaps one of my daily appreciations should be directed toward someone or something new on my list each day.  I kind of see this as a twist on "Paying it Forward", but it is absolutely practical to show daily appreciations.

I am a facilitator of meetings.  As a facilitator I easily fall into the trap of speaking to much.  People who know me, know I have an opinion on everything.  I am hoping by limiting my appreciations to two per day, appreciations will become contagious.  In a collaborative agile software world we could all use a bit more appreciation.

It is Thanksgiving after all, so I have certainly a great deal to be thankful for.  On Monday show your appreciations to your colleagues, especially a Tester.

Happy Turkey Day!

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