Jimi Wikman

Scrum. Everyone knows it. Everyone uses it. But for many, Scrum doesn’t deliver what it promises. My fellow Serious Scrum writer Maarten Dalmijn states he never saw a team that nailed Scrum. I saw a few. And they were thriving. But I have seen far more teams struggling. I believe the problem is that Scrum is very difficult to understand. On the surface, it seems straightforward. You introduce some roles, work in Sprints, dailies, reviews and retros and you do Scrum.

As a self-confessed agile nerd, a question I like to ask my peers is: “What is your favourite ceremony?” For me, the one that always wins is the retrospective. A retrospective is a great opportunity for teams to come together, in a safe space, to inspect and adapt. They can celebrate their successes and reflect on what could be improved, with no finger pointing or blame.

Design influences the world in many ways, from user experience and branding to architecture and engineering. A practical and elegant method of implementing design is by utilizing the well-known principle that form follows function. This notion implies that design decisions are quantified with purpose and grounded in efficiency and practicality — nothing more and nothing less. However, this utopian methodology can result in designs that come across as sterile and predictable.

It’s an interesting time to be a researcher. As someone who has always been fascinated by the ways that people interact with each other, the last 18 months have provided me with the opportunity to look at a familiar concept through a completely new lens. Personally, I found that I really love remote work. I’ve found new ways to connect with my teammates and I feel more creative and productive than ever. But I’m a sample size of one. I was curious to investigate what the rest of the scientific community had to say about how to improve virtual work. After delving into multiple peer-reviewed articles about the topic, I extracted some key takeaways that can help virtual teams thrive. Here’s what I learned.