Intrapreneurship is an undervalued asset!
I apply my experimental hacker mindset to improve the work experience for my own processes, teams, and environments.
THE IMPETUS
I was facilitating a project kickoff for a remote team where all members had worked together but one. I needed a get-to-know-each other activity that was low-pressure and demonstrated that this was a new team, not an addition to the team. |
THE IDEA
This was inspired by a PM. Before the kickoff, I prepared a virtual board with some directive prompts and placeholder objects, like a fridge. We met virtually and filled it in together, chatting about interests while people added. |
THE RESULT
It was very successful — and surprisingly therapeutic! Besides unearthing shared interests (Taylor Swift was one) and allowing us to meet as people, it created team ownership— like when people began adding items off-board. |
THE IMPETUS
We noticed a theme across projects that junior team members did not grasp the holistic view of the project, despite the SOW, Gantt, and RACI accessible in team spaces. This made it hard to pull tasks forward and put a burden on Leads and PMs. |
THE IDEA
I thought back to HS science labs, where I went through the instructions prepared for me, but had no idea why I was doing what I was doing. I realized that’s how our teams were feeling. I led a kickoff where instead of presenting the plan, I presented the SOW. Together we extracted key activities, deliverables, and details, then together built the Gantt and my signature Shrek-inspired RACI. |
THE RESULT
This project is ongoing, but the team said it was enlightening to even be exposed to an SOW and appreciate how a Gantt is put together. |
THE IMPETUS
We had gotten into a nice groove with project retrospectives: timely scheduling, consistent agenda, trained facilitators. But one area we were struggling was being able to paint an accurate view of project lows. Part of this was recall burden, but it was also discomfort in revisiting conflict or challenges that we’d moved past. |
THE IDEA
I used the poll functionality of an existing Slack app, Polly, to capture the real-time project pulse. Light-touch questions, written by the whole team, go out to project members in their DMs and gather data anonymously. We’ll use this data to build a journey map for the retro |
THE RESULT
The team enjoyed being able to craft the questions and explore what health means to them. In the future, the hope is to use this data to also make mid-project course corrections. |