Niko Niko Calendar as a tool of Management 3.0 in the integration and sense of belonging in work teams.
The practice of the Niko Niko Calendar, a tool used by Management 3.0 (See: https://management30.com/practice/niko-niko-calendar/), I used it for a team of developers from a financial institution; in total 16 people. (In this case, we are working with the implementation of agile methodologies, specifically with the Scrum framework.
Being a multidisciplinary team and that they did not know each other, the application of the Niko Niko calendar was established from day one. The preliminary idea of the use of this tool, is that each of the team members, just starting the day, place in a format identified with your name and / or avatar, an emoticon that expresses one of the following emotions: Happy, Neutral, Sad, Annoyed.
This facilitates interaction and empathy between them.
The Niko Niko calendar was created by Akinori Sakata in 2005, it is an indicator of the emotional state of the team members. In this way, you can interpret the possible level of motivation that the person has every day.
Daniel Goleman (2000), indicated that the consulting firm Hay-McBer conducted surveys of a group of employees from multiple companies on their interaction with their direct managers and the work climate (a total of 3,871 managers were analyzed). The analysis of this data showed that between 50% and 70% of the employees’ perception was related to their emotional states. The emotional state of a team expands or contracts its talent and highly influences its performance and productivity.
Hence, the importance of working with this tool.
The main motivation for using the Niko Niko Calendar was to create integration and empathy among team members.
The team is composed of16 professionals from different disciplines, forming a Scrum Squad, in a financial institution. The purpose of the team is to develop a software that meets the new functionalities required by the Bank.
What led me to apply it was the optimization of the process and the need to create a sense of belonging and empathy among the team members.
Objective of the use of this Management 3.0 tool
It was explained to each team member the importance of knowing their mood on a daily basis, in order to improve communication when requesting support. Also, to be able to create a greater empathy according to the state of mind among the colleagues.
They were indicated that they would work, with 4 emoticons representing the following states of mind: Happy, Neutral, Sad, Angry. Additionally, it was suggested that they create an avatar that will represent them, which they gladly agreed to. The main idea is to be able to place in the Niko Niko format as soon as the day begins, the state of mind you are in.
In one case, one of the team members placed an emoticon that meant: Annoying. We approached him at an appropriate time of the day and asked him why he had the emoticon. His response was: “Yesterday my phone was stolen and I lost a lot of information I had on it. Now I have to buy another one, and I didn’t plan to use the money for that. That day, the low productivity of the collaborator was specifically noticed, but because he used the tool, it was understood that it was a circumstantial issue.
In the first stage of application of the tool, the team suggested that in addition to placing the mood with the emoticon, they would take advantage of the format to assign the team leader to make coffee (drinking coffee is a habit in this region), and they made a figure of a coffee mug. (You can see it in the attached image #1).
At the end of the Sprint (maximum time of 4 weeks), all the recorded data was taken and a weighting was placed according to the number of times the emoticon of each mood was used, in order to determine which was the most relevant in the team. In one opportunity, the mood was between neutral and sad, which allowed us to take as an action to improve the mood, sharing Pizzas with everyone in the workplace. (See attached image #2). This contributed to improve the productivity and the mood of the collaborators.
To carry out the Niko Niko Calendar, I used the following 8 steps:
- Explanation of the Niko Niko Calendar
- Avatar request for each member.
- The rules and regulations for using the Niko Niko Calendar were stated.
- The format of the Niko Niko Calendar was prepared (In this case it was on the wall).
- Emoticons were made with their moods on a foamy sheet: Happy, Neutral, Upset, Sad. (To be attached to the wall every day).
- Every morning we check that everyone has placed their emoticon.
- Weekly a record of the emotional state is made. (It is compiled)
- At the end of the Sprint (4 weeks), a summary of all the weeks related to the Sprint is made to know the mood that was in the team, verifying if it had some type of incidence in the productivity and adjustments are applied if necessary (example: sharing of Pizza to improve the mood of the team).
It is necessary to indicate that thanks to the participation of the Senior Management, all the activities described above could be carried out.
In my role as facilitator I learned in the application and use of the Niko Niko calendar, to know the mood of the team members. In addition, with this simple tool, significant progress was made in the relationship between team members and in a very short time. I found ways to identify times when it was necessary to stop and share some activity to improve the mood and productivity of the team.
The team obtained as a learning experience the simplicity that existed in the calendar and the extraordinary contributions it produces in communication. They themselves, when noticing if someone did not place the emoticon of the day, asked them to do so. Generating a permanent interaction between all of them.
My next steps will be two: One is to add other emoticons requested by the team members, as they are: Sick, Vacation, On leave, Stressed. And the second step is to keep the same permanent follow-up and feedback given to the team.
The result that could be observed in the team was a greater integration and empathy among all. Even with the rest of the areas that had direct links with them.
Finally, I recommend to all leaders who wish to incorporate the new methodologies of Management 3.0; use the Niko Niko Calendar as one of the first tools, since it allows to know how each member of the team is in an interactive and friendly way, generating an excellent working environment.
In these 8 steps that I used for the application of this tool, I leave them as a guide enunciative and not restrictive. Have the confidence to add or maintain what you consider necessary to develop it in your team. I recommend that if you apply what I described and you can make improvements, share it. This way, together we can support the development of the different work teams wherever they are.
Did you like the topic? I hope it has been useful for your professional development, I would like to know your comments.
Ph. D. Rolando Jurado
Sources of consultation:
https://management30.com/practice/niko-niko-calendar/
