I am playing the role of a scrum master and for the past one month all of us are working remotely. There are team members in India as well as Netherlands. I am based out of Chennai, India. This is part of a series of blogs that I am writing to document few of my experiences while working distributed(previous one being Innovation in times of isolation ). Many of these are completely new scenarios for me. I am still learning this new way of working and learning in an incremental manner.
Scenario : Team had a major release and they are getting accolades from all directions for their hard work. They are ecstatic. The feature is being used by a large number of customers. In the not so distant past, when we were working from office, team used to celebrate such success by cutting a cake in the office and going out for a team lunch, sometimes clubbed with a movie. Now even ordering food from outside is not considered safe !! What if the cook or the delivery boy is infected with corona virus? I know, all of us are a bit paranoid now.
Challenge : Celebrating team’s success when working distributed and there is no going out or ordering cake involved.
Oscar comes to rescue: I thought that I can combine some sort of celebration with the upcoming retrospection. Many ideas were suggested the day before — one of them was Oscar themed. I found it funny and thought of having a go at that. The idea is that the team has to pretend that they have won the Oscar award for the best team and each team member has to come and accept the award on team’s behalf. Dress code much be Oscar ready as well; you can’t be under-dressed when the entire world is watching. They can use any prop to represent the Oscar. I requested each team member to send one small video(less than 3 minutes) pretending to accept the Oscar. I was not so sure how the team will take it. Will they send me the video? Will they be too shy to send it ? Will they find it odd? Many of these were my apprehensions as well. I was not so sure if I can pull it off as well. I could not be more wrong!! Team members started sending the videos. The first video came in; team member was dressed in a nice blue blazer, holding a doll to represent the Oscar. In true Oscar style, he made a fantastic entry, thanked all team members for their support, God and his wife and then made a statement about Corona virus (social message which most of celebrities never miss). I am not allowed to post the videos here but I was impressed by his creativity, wit, courage and sportsman spirit. Next came another video from the next team mate, pretending to be drunk and smoking a cigar while accepting the award and thanking a very famous Godman for all his success. This was followed by the video from the Product Owner who was holding a beer bottle as an Oscar and was dressed in a suit. Most of them sent the video, the ones who did not were asked to do it live while having the video call. Once I got all the videos, I prepared a small speech as I was the one announcing the nominations and the winner! Once all the videos were received; it was my turn to act as a good host. I started the call wearing sunglasses and navy-blue t-shirt. Team members were surprised to me see this way and enquired, I replied that it was my Oscar outfit. I thanked everybody for giving me this opportunity and express my honor to be announcing this award. The nominations for the best team were announced where I used some funny/goofy names (one of them was our team’s name). Took help of power point to make applause sound when the names and the winner was announced. Then I called each member from the team to come on stage and accept the award and played the video of them accepting the award. None of the team members had seen each other’s video so there was an element of surprise. They could not stop laughing and giggling. Other team member made the live speech. Since it was recorded, each team member had the chance to practice and do a retake before sending the videos. They had used their mobile for taking the video. They narrated some funny incidents while making the video as well. Team was happy and I felt that they connected with each other on a different level. Also, I came to know that there were so many artistes in our team. I was really happy to see that they were such sports and were courageous enough. I was very inspired and touched by them. For me as well this was a learning experience.
Mission Oscar accomplished!!
Note: I used the latest Microsoft Teams feature where we can change the background. It’s also possible to uses your custom backgrounds for video calls. I downloaded an Oscar wallpaper and used that as a background image in Microsoft Teams. This allowed me to appear as if I am hosting an award from the stage, theoretically . I love this new feature. I am not being paid by Microsoft Team to write about this 😊