On a recent Webmaker call, I learned about the proposal to have the Webmaker teams start operating on a regular schedule, which has been dubbed “heartbeat.” Each heartbeat lasts two weeks, and includes planning, retrospection, heads down working, a mid-point check in, and demos.

I dig this. I was a Scrum Master in my former life, and the heartbeat idea echoes Scrum, which I know to be a super effective tool for creating rhythm on a team.

In addition to the benefits/goals cited in the presentation, I would add that rhythm is also good for:

• syncing between teams
• increasing accountability and trust within a team
• ensuring continuous improvement
• increasing velocity/productivity
• improving morale

Here are some thoughts on how we might implement a heartbeat within the context of the Engagement team:

• Identify the right heartbeat duration. Does two weeks make sense for the highly responsive and externally-focused work we do?
• Incorporate planning into our team meeting. This might just mean making sure the answers to the question “what will get done this week?” are in bugzilla and/or on the workbench. I’ve found that planning works best when teams are operating from a shared, continually updated backlog of items. If you have this, “planning” can be very low effort: it’s simply pulling a set of items from the top of the backlog and labeling them with the upcoming heartbeat.
• Add demos to our routine. This could be part of the weekly team meeting, or perhaps could be done in an ad-hoc way. Creating the expectation that each part of the team will demo something during each heartbeat would lend even more intentionality to the planning.
• Incorporate retrospecting behaviors. This might mean a 10-minute debrief at the end of every heartbeat, either for the whole team, or perhaps divided into the different functional areas. It might mean building a virtual suggestion box for people to share ideas about how to improve our process, or cultivating a weekly “One thing I will do differently this week is…” habit. There are lots of ways to build a culture of action-oriented retrospection!

Curious to know what others think about adopting the heartbeat model for the Engagement team.

http://hannahgrams.com/2014/06/02/heartbeat-engagement-style/