a day in my life as a mavericks hr/manager

An Agile HR & Management Team? 

I’d imagine it’s difficult for any HR professional to comprehend the concept of “Agile” from the get-go, let alone how an HR team functions fully as an Agile team. But thinking boldly and out of the norm is what we’re all about! And so that’s the way we work as an HR & Management Team, which is also known as the Mission Control Team (MCT) in Mavericks Consulting!

For the uninitiated, here’s a simple infographic on what Agile Methodology is: 

Source: Mavericks Consulting

Pretty cool, huh? 😎

The Weekly Routine 

As part of an Agile team, my weeks always begin with what we call a “Backlog Grooming & Sprint Planning” session. We comb through a list of tasks that are awaiting our attention to complete and pick out our top priorities to work on for the week ahead. As of writing this article, we currently have a whopping 85 things to do in our backlog! 

Source: Our Stand Up Board

As you can imagine, narrowing a huge list is never easy. It typically takes us about an hour. During this time, members of the team bring up tasks for discussion. 

Sometimes the decision is unanimous (Yes, that is absolutely a high priority task for the week because of high benefits/time sensitivity!). Other times, members aren’t quite on the same page (I don’t think we have the bandwidth for that this week…) and fervent discussion ensues. 

This is one of the best parts of being a part of this team. We self-manage, and function as an independent but united entity. When it comes to making decisions, we discuss and come to a common consensus. We are different individuals with the same goal — to put up a strong performance week on week.

The Daily Grind 

My mornings always begin with a 15-minute Stand Up session, where we share updates on our deliverables. These can be in the form of blockers, progress milestones and items done to completion. And yes, we do indeed stand for the duration of these meetings. We’ve found it to be great motivation to keep the session short! 😉

Source: The MCT. A little shot of a ‘flamingo stand up’ from when we had an MCT outing to the zoo! 

These meetings may be short in duration, but they go a long way in ensuring team performance and morale remains high. Faced with a never-ending list of things to do, it’s easy to tunnel-vision into a specific task and lose sight of the bigger picture. When done right, Stand Ups can offer a lot of clarity to a team, boosting confidence and morale overall! 

Within our team, we rotate the Scrum Master for our sessions weekly. This individual may run the Stand Ups, but they function more as a facilitator than anything else. The goal for the Scrum Master is to make sure that the team is consistently on tasks and performing week after week by offering nudges in the right direction habits-wise. 

Everyone in our team gets a go at being the scrum master regularly. Over time, you develop some pretty solid facilitation and people management skills. 

You learn that asking someone “What have you done?” is very different from “So how does what you’ve done impact the team?”. 

You also learn how to look out for cues in individuals that might explain disengagement in a stand up session. A generally bubbly individual who goes quiet when it comes time to offer their opinions in a Stand Up? Might be simply a case of the individual feeling like they don’t know enough to add their voice to the floor. A simple question by the Scrum Master — “Does anyone need clarification on any of the tasks and what’s been shared so far?” — is often the remedy. 

Of course, everyone on the team is expected to be proactive, vocal and drive their own progress. But it’s natural for everyone to need time to grow into these habits, particularly if it wasn’t something on your radar all your life. We build each other up within the team, serving as each other’s gentle checks-and-balances to guide one another into the right habits. 

The Fun

Working in an Agile way means leaning heavily into the idea of:

“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together”.

Collaboration is a huge part of being an Agile team. Like what we advocate for in our little rendition of Do’s & Don’ts called “The Mavericks Way”, help is always just a poke away! 

Source: Mavericks Consulting 

And working together becomes such an incredibly FUN thing, when you’re surrounded by a group of talented, capable and driven individuals. Taking stock now, here are some of the things I cherish most about this team.  

• We get things done.

• We get them done well. 

• We have a bazillion laughs along the way 😃

Call me crazy, but there’s a special kind of satisfaction that comes with knowing you delivered above and beyond. And you did it together. 

The End Beginning 

Source: MCT. The team in NTU Job-In Fair!

In my schooling days, I remember watching TV shows where the camera would pan to the depressed salaryman slaving away at his dark tiny cubicle in a grey office and feeling a sense of dread. At the end of my education, was this what was waiting for me? If it was, I really didn’t want it. 

Juxtaposing that against the open workspace I’m writing this article in right now, with a colleague friend by my side who’s waiting for me to conclude this article so that we may lunch and laugh together (as we always do), I can’t help but feel grateful. Because in a world where work is often grey with its mundanity, here is a team that bursts with colour and vibrancy, where no two days are ever the same, and where everyone matters. Here’s to laughing and growing together as one team!