The fresh start: 6 tips for your Scrum team

Do you feel extra motivated to make a whole new beginning after a weekend or just after your vacation? I have that all the time now. And so do my fellow trainers. And so do my friends. In fact, I notice it in everyone around me. It can’t be a coincidence and it isn’t. Psychologists call it the “Fresh-start Effect. You can use the energy of that fresh start smartly. But there is also a dangerous side to it. I like to share with you some tips to get the most out of your fresh-start feeling.

1. Use momentum together with your Scrum team

When you leave a project for a while, take a little break and pick it up again a little later, you feel the extra motivation to do it even better. However? You are not alone in this. The rest of your team probably feels the exact same way. Katherine Milkman and her colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania investigated this so-called “Fresh-Start Effect. They discovered that many people mentally pupate at these moments. Suddenly, people appear able to leave annoying baggage behind and make a new start with fresh eyes. Typical “Fresh-start” moments are: coming back from vacation, New Year’s Day, Monday morning, after a two-day training. But also: the beginning of a new sprint. If you start a new sprint on Monday, the Fresh-start Effect is often extra strong.

2. Make in advance what else can be done

If you talk to the same people in the same place in the same attitude, everything quickly returns to the same old thing. That’s why it’s best to look for things you can already do differently, regardless of what you want to achieve. Meet in a different room, invite a new person to the Scrum team or use a totally different working format. The atmosphere of innovation and improvement will swirl through the Scrum team.

3. Keep your goal central

Not every change is an improvement. So make sure you have and keep the goal sharp with the whole team. If you want to prevent relapse, it is important to be able to cite the higher goal. In this way you can work together to find the change that will make you all happy. Let that change actually live and do so in the brief moments of alignment. For example, in your Daily Scrums.

4. Be careful to retain the good

Note that research on the Fresh-Start Effect shows that it can also be a time when performance actually slumps! This happens especially when performance before the break was already very good. There is then no slight irritation after the break about how it went and also no urge to do better. Without that urge to improve, it can be dangerous to change course. You may actually lose your good routine. Keep the product goal and ambition!

5. Get to know each other in a different way

Chances are you talk to colleagues almost exclusively about work. Okay, on Monday mornings you might talk about sports for a few minutes. But do you know who their superheroes are? Or what they are secretly very proud of? Just what does your colleague find very cringe– the biggest fear? And what is the most hilarious childhood memory they have? Ask a few original questions and it will be like working on a whole new Scrum team.

6. Invite a trainer or coach

Sometimes you need new tools or skills to change tack. Or you just need to hear it from someone else. That’s when it helps to invite a good coach to look at the way you work. A fresh look can do wonders. In-company training with the whole team is also more than a good idea. Together you take some distance from the current working method and then see very quickly what can be improved after a fresh start!