How important is it for agile application development teams to have fun together? InfoQ recently collected a variety of opinions on the topic. The majority seem to concur that a little bit of fun makes teams more efficient and collaborative. For example, Alex Krause says, “If you fill in a little bit of fun during meetings they are so much more fun, the team is a lot more motivated and they enjoy working together with you a lot more. If the meetings you are responsible for are fun to be in, people will like to attend. And do not forget to celebrate success. Bring candy to the sprint review. Champagne or beer after a major launch – depending on the team’s preferences.”
But Guillaume Duquesnay disagrees, stating, “I’m a bit cautious with the connection between happiness, fun and productivity (i.e. delivering more value). I started the other way: being connected to a purpose and fulfilling it makes people happy. Regarding fun, I don’t see it as a performance trigger. Sometimes, hard stuff has to be said before improving.”
