Patterns: Quickest rotation

Name

Quickest Rotation

Intent

• Keep group energy level high
• Keep mobbers engaged
• Prevent driver and navigator from becoming overwhelmed
• Prevent driver and navigator from becoming frustrated
• Ensure whole-team ownership

Context

Any mob can apply this, but it’s especially good for new mobs and when people are frustrated, overwhelmed, or disengaged.

Purpose

Novice mobs often choose overly long rotation times. This leads to frustration, overwhelm, and disengement in a way that is difficult to trace back to the rotation time.

Make it possible to work with a 1-minute rotation timer, and get everyone used to how that feels. While you don’t necessarily need to maintain a 1-minute rotation time for normal work, you should bias towards shorter rather than longer rotations.

How To

Run Musical Chairs to people warmed up and in the flow.

Set a 15 minute mob timer. Run 1 iteration, either in a kata or in real work.

Have a micro-retro on friction you bumped into that makes this rotation time difficult. Some areas to consider:

• build and test time
• slow driver swap

Reduce the timer to 8 minutes and run another rotation. Repeat the micro-retro.

Repeat with 4 minutes, then 3, 2, 1.

Continue shrinking the iteration time until you bump into barrier. Retro to address that barrier, and shrink again.

You should be able to get to smooth development with a 1 minute timer when working on a kata or similar quick build-and-test project.

Collaborators

• Smart Input Device
• Musical Chairs
• Rotate on Event

Consequences

Forces each driver to continue the thought of the previous driver.