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Comment by illwrks | Hacker News Reader

Our Friday stand-up is pretty much an opportunity to share a song from a year and why it's meaningful to you personally. The idea was suggested by our scrum master last June and it has gone down well. It's been good for maintaining the bonds while remote working and also learn a bit more about colleagues.

That and having an understanding that everyone has ups and downs especially as we will face into winter and the uncertainty around what that means. In an odd way I've learned more about the team than I would have if we were in the office.

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Can I ask if it has gone down well because it actually did or because as in most of these things, people are 'afraid to speak up' and just go along with it?

I can't even imagine being in one of those calls. I prefer my personal life to have a good buffer from my work life (thus I speak about it as little as possible) and same for my co-workers personal lives.

I've seen these kinds of 'calls/meetings' to improve relationships in the work place, but whenever I talk off the record with folks (usually over drinks) most of them hate it and just go with it not to raise waves.

That's the problem. There isn't an "off the record" any more.

To put it into context I'm in a small team, our team is part of a larger 40+ team. There are things I would be comfortable saying openly with my team Vs the wider team. Not that I have much of a filter anyway...

We tried doing a bimonthly quiz across our wider team but attendance waned and it was a lot of work for people to pull together content and manage etc.

In our smaller team, you are right and not everyone is into the idea every week, but they are vocal about it and the reasons (deadline/family etc). They are not penalised in any way shape or form for being honest. We also had themed stand-ups for a while (it was good to cheer us up from time to time but a lot of work).

We also have to acknowledge that it's different for everyone, we all have different circumstances.

I have a daughter, two of my colleagues have two kids, one is single, one is in a relationship. Half the team are from different countries, and have had visits home cancelled, they have been upset on calls I've been depressed about things too at times, but you have to be honest with your team, now more than ever you need to be supportive of eachother.

The most simple thing I've found is to have a variety of MS Teams backgrounds that are not your standard ones. It's a simple thing but can get a smile every now and then, especially when someone's kid appears!

As much as I advocate structure, I’ve never gone down there path of formalizing any sort of sharing of personal info, even about songs.

However, as a lead I think it’s important to set an example by voluntarily sharing at least some of my personal life. It opens the space for others who need to vent. Not everyone on my team does- some just need to hear that others are people too, and some are probably just indifferent.

I do have bounds though- I never share inter personal conflicts except with happy endings or as amusing anecdotes (such as my young daughter refusing to wear anything but her princess costume), and while I try to encourage people to share news of life’s tragedies and triumphs, team calls are not group therapy. I’ll happily talk more with people 1-1 about real problems (tragically one of my team members spouse passed recently. We talked about her and their journey multiple times), but other than news of her illness and passing we didn’t talk much about it publicly.

That's nice. Thanks for sharing.

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