Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The Agile Friendly Workspace

As published  inl Jun 2010 and with a bit refinment

A list of things that should be within the ideal agile workspace:

Switching from one place to another and being exposed to deferent workplaces and deferent agile patterns, I have prepared a small list of how I view the ideal agile work place.
Needless to say, that as we know that for each company the agile framework fits differently , so does the working space structure.
Following a list we can pick from J

  • Team are placed together in one space : integrated team – developers , testers
  • White board in the team room/ or any other board or big window….
Those can visualize the Kanban, chart, status, or just fit as an awesome communication tool
  • Boards, as communication tool, Can be placed in team room but also in some public places in the company: Corroder, kitchen. This will enhance the visibility of team work to everyone and though enhance commitment.


  • Feedback tools.

  • Visual feedback tools: visualize charts on boards, or web based visual reports – project status, CI & NB status. Visible in real time. The more visibility we have on team commitments, the more shared the commitment and responsibility with the rest of the relevant world. Commitment is spared.

  • Visibility to team members.
o    Team members should see each other in person inside the team room.
o    Team members should have Easy access to a personal communication.
o    Yet, save the personal intimacy space of each other (each has a personal space, PC, screen, personal things, and privacy)


  • One team member should Be able to move easily to other team member space  for a brief discussion.
  • Scrum master and Group leader are 'in the room ' – available to the team

But yet, has some kind of personal privacy to be able to deal with other high level issues.

  • Team zone
o    Each team zone should be clear and should protect team communication.
o    The team should be able to talk (not whisper) , argue and freely communicate with each other.
When more than one team is located on one big open space people tend to reduce communication, to whispers, they tend to talk less so they won't bother other teams in the same big space.
Team members usually will not hear each other in real time and may nor address issues when they occur.
Communication can be blocked although the intent was to keep it open. 
























No comments:

Post a Comment