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Niko-niko - the simple, regular check-in

From the Team Mood blog:

The technique is very easy: at the end of the day, each team member paste a sticker on a calendar to tell if he had a good day at work.

Everyone choose a colour of sticker with a smiley on it. (Niko means smile.)

After some time, you’ll see some color being dominant, it will give an insight of the mood of the team.

And when trends emerge, the idea is you can work out what’s causing them.

The originator in Japan points out that a big benefit of this practice isn’t just feedback and expression, it comes from reflection.

A small reflection association is executed. And, it informs the companion of my feelings. The repetition of such every day gives birth to mental depuration. Purification of every day. It is purification little by little.

Hey! - I used this with my remote development team at BackupAgent. It got abandoned after a while as I was seeing smileys from day to day and nothing actionable appeared for me. Context was remote team operating from the Ukraine. I had a hard time establishing the practice and people tend to be afraid to indicate that they’re unhappy.

I can do a session on this during the next LeanCamp or at Source Camp.

cool! Could you add it to the wiki for session ideas: http://community.source.institute/t/source-camp-netherlands-unconference-and-fixer-sessions-wiki/315