Pain is temporary, failure lasts forever

Lean, agile living for the running mother of Peter

2007-11-30

Team rooms

Do you remember those old "computer rooms" in school. You remember the smell? Well, sometimes agile smells just like that. I don't know how many times I've heard about agile teams being referred to small conference rooms just to be seated together. Rooms not adapted for so many people for such a long time. I wonder how many failures of agile projects are the results of bad working environment...

Our team moved into our room exactly a year ago. We were so happy that we finally got our team room. The previous tenants had used the room for two guys. We were four and I believe the room is adapted for a group of that size.

When we max our resources we are now 9 guys and a girl. And the room both smells like and looks like that old computer room in High School. So, my highest priority is now: project Exodus. Moving out from the team room. There are larger rooms, but I guess the problem crept up on us. Now, it must change. Team rooms are nice, but adapted team rooms are brilliant.

2 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

9 people in the same room! Sounds like your productivity must be suffering?

December 1, 2007 at 5:15 AM  
Blogger Anna Forss said...

well both. I think we're quite focused in our daily job and most of the guys listen to their own music while coding but almost all meetings are held in the team room, so if someone just want to listen but continue coding, that works to.

The downside, besides from smell and air, is that if someone is goofing around, everyone gets involved. But that is also something that makes us a fun team: being at work is supposed to be fun!

December 2, 2007 at 8:07 AM  

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