, May 31 2011, 0 reactions

The newly launched co-creation platform workimprovers.nl focuses on change management - interesting as it is multi-approachable. Within our own organization, we are working on this as well and we are continuously in motion. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 535 BC - 475 BC) said: ”All is flux, the only constant is change.” Surely, from that point of view, IQNOMY introduced the term ‘Liquid Internet’ into the world of online. In brief: Liquid Internet is the term for a new generation of websites of which the content no longer has a fixed position or format. Based on many years of development, IQNOMY developed a technology that provides (B2C) website visitors with relevant information in real time. For website owners, the solution is a multi-functional tool to gain insight into the preferences and interests of the website visitors. But more about this some other time.

Within internet company IQNOMY the focus lies on various (software) projects. This means that the progress and speed of our project activities are of great importance to us. In this, working from various office locations should not make a difference. As long as the employer trusts that his employees do their work with commitment and responsibility, location is no issue. The daily scrum meetings can continue as usual, with or without physical attendance of the team members. Last week, we put the digital head of our colleague Ramon on our litte round scrum table, the only thing we had to do was moving the laptop around, so Ramon could look the speaker in the eyes.

For those who are not familiar with the term: ‘scrum’ is originated from the world of rugby. It refers to a play in which a group of players attempt to move the ball to the other side of the rugby field. When translating this into meeting tactics, scrum meetings are short meetings in which the project goal stays clear, but in which project component closures are of secondary importance. Visualized, you would see a quirky line pointing at the desired target. Most importantly, at this type of meetings everyone should be informed about essential business and how to enhance these rapidly when needed. The so-called iterations in which operational software is being delivered, are comparable with the short sprints by the rugby players approaching their goal. Scrum is effective in sharing multidisciplinary knowledge (supervized by a real ‘scrum master’) and  stimulates our colleagues to widen the horizon of their own little islands. Development paths are made free of obstacles and risks are kept to a minimum. The questions? They are simply like these ones:

1) What are you working on (since yesterday)?
2) What have you planned to do (tomorrow)?
3) Which problems do you have to tackle to work more efficiently?

In my relatively short time at IQNOMY, I noticed that this type of co-operation is really fruitful. We feel engaged with each other’s activities, we have the ability to see things in the right perspective and we certainly have a ‘we’ feeling. Working according to the scrum methodology makes your organization agile. A state of mind that is essential to survive in these turbulent times. So let’s scrum!