Software engineers are often seen by others as loony nerds (or weirdos) who are spending most of their time “interacting” with machines. And the more time passes, the more they are leaving the boundaries of “humanity” and becoming machines of their own. And within this transformation they seem to lose their emotionality and empathy (or emotional intelligence in general). The Misemotions Game is a great…
The Teamwork Oscars
This exercise was created for practicing Benne and Sheats’s group roles (although it might be adapted for any other similar classification). It does so by asking teams to resolve text puzzles (derived from popular teamwork fables) while at the same time team members are acting various group roles. Based on their performance the teams (as well as the individuals) might be awarded Oscars. The exercise…
The Workplace Equations
This exercise drives a meaningful discussion on what satisfaction and motivation is in the workplace. It does this through the metaphors of Heaven and Hell, organizational storytelling and various elements of gamification. Furthermore the exercise could be used by teams to derive their own Workplace Equations (based on their specific understandings / perceptions of satisfaction and motivation) and then use these equations to continuously monitor…
The Battle of the Retrospectives
This exercise is about practicing various ways for conducting retrospectives. Although it is a good starting point to the diverse world of retrospectives, it could be used also as an instrument to roughly assess and eventually select the retrospective format which best suits participants’ needs and individual preferences.
The Fatware Matrix
The human desire for choice is unlimited. At least this is advocated in many psychological theories of human motivation and economic theories of rational choice. And this is so natural – after all having multiple options gives us the freedom to select the ones which suit us best. However scientists have recently found just the opposite – having “too many” choice might be demotivating and…