A few ideas to work with Culture

We have been working in a Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe) Program for almost the last six months. The program is built of ten teams working together to build a platform that will provide support for the customers of the different brands.

This program is part of an organisation with over +100,000 people distributed around tens of countries so there is a lot of effort to build the right culture across the organisation and in each program. Like most organisations of this size, the number of vendors/partners is huge and we are starting to realise that this is impacting and influencing the culture as well.

Today we have been working with a great group of facilitators in three big pillars to improve the culture in our teams and across the program.

Drive Connection

We will start with 1:1 coffee chats, suggest “blind dates” for colleagues that may benefit from meeting, and take it from there to try to create the space for our people to build better relationships.

Promote Recognition

We already have in place a recognition system that is focused on individuals and it will be extended to teams so we can make team spirit flourish even more and promote values as we win or lost together.

Foster Celebration

At the moment we are thinking of birthdays and pictures of breakfast. To be honest, I am a bit sceptical on that one but we will give the benefit of the doubt and trust that we will learn something from it.

So, how do you work in the culture of your teams? Please share in the comments if you have experiences that have worked well for you… :)