Lockdown is a strange beast, doing a search on the web to make sure you and your teams are doing the right thing brings a wealth of war stories and advice from those who have ‘been there before’ and ‘managed to survive’. If the truth be told, we’re not just surviving at Scrumconnect we seem to have levelled up naturally.
Our attitude has always been to provide professional, experienced, senior consultants to help our customers get the best value. This is proving to be a hugely positive business practice. We don’t fill vacant slots with those just starting out in the industry just to make up the numbers, and we don’t bring junior staff in and have them cut their teeth in the industry at the expense of helping our customers deliver. Look at my previous blog on how we successfully onboarded 30 developers in 30 days to a large Government project, we’re now up to 52 developers on that project by the way!
We have found that when the pressure is on our consultants go the extra mile and quite often are the difference between success and failure. The lack of commute doesn’t mean they get an extra hour in bed, it means they hit the ground running earlier because they are aware of the tight timescales the programme is under. Also the reduction in stress due to less travelling on public transport is obvious.
The majority of our people feel that they focus better, perhaps that is the nature of development over some other disciplines. We all know that developers tend to work better in a darkened room while being fed pizza under the door; lockdown seems to satisfy that need. This increase in focus has seen velocity rise across the team.
The lockdown came at an interesting time for some of our team members. Some had family in other countries who were just about to join them, which means they’ve been left in limbo. Others were fortunate enough to come together before the lockdown. Some live in shared accommodation with others who go out to work and therefore are self isolating from them. Awareness of mental health and well-being is of huge importance to us. Developers work closely in an Agile delivery team and are in constant contact with other. We work closely with each Tech Lead and regularly talk in person to each individual; that’s extremely important to us. We make a point of encouraging them to take regular breaks and to ensure they do not burn the candle at both ends, which can be so easily done in the current situation.
For our permanent staff we’ve started a regular weekly online coffee morning. We try to keep this non-work related and have a laugh. We are also continuing with our Developer Community meetings, 35 turned up yesterday, ordinarily that would mean standing room only but they were all safe at home following the lockdown rules.
I believe that at the end of lockdown our teams will be stronger for this experience, simply because they have taken to it positively and seen it as a challenge and opportunity rather than seeing potential doom at every turn. I am pleased and blessed to be working with a great bunch of professionals.