Evaluate your team’s health with the Niko Niko Mood Tracker. Over time, the Niko Niko tracker can help reveal patterns of change in the moods of the team or of individual members which may impact productivity and team velocity.
| Mood | Votes |
|---|---|
| 😃 | |
| 😐 | XXXX |
| 🙁 | XX |
In this example, Scrum Team Bravo filled in a Niko Niko table during their Sprint #2 Retrospective and determined that no one was happy about this sprint. Digging into the Root Cause, it was discovered that an Engineering Manager had injected work into their sprint which caused the Scrum Team to not complete 3 originally committed sprint items.
How to use the Niko Niko method?
Creating a Niko Niko tracker is a simple as creating a quick table like the example above and having your team tally their overall happiness level for a sprint during their Sprint Retrospectives. You could also use an online tool like Idea Boardz which is helpful if team members are working remotely. Over time, you can chart the happiness trend for a team and explore opportunities to improve team morale which in turn could help stabilize and/or increase productivity and team velocity.
In this example, the following y-values are defined as:
- 😃 = 2
- 😐 = 1
- 🙁 = 0
Scrum Team Bravo was not happy during Sprint #2 and #3 because an Engineering Manager injected work into these sprints causing the team to not complete their original sprint goals. During a Leadership Standup, this issue was brought to the attention of the Engineering Manager and he agreed to work with the Product Owner moving forward to get the R&D work properly prioritized and planned instead of injected into the sprints. Scrum Team Bravo then reported a greater happiness trend for Sprints 4, 5, and 6 as the team was able to successfully complete their sprint objectives with minimal distractions which led to increased team velocity.
When to use the Niko Niko method?
The Niko Niko method can be used during the daily standups, as part of the sprint retrospective, and/or after a release.