Virtual Kudo Box
What is Kudo?
Kudo, kudos - what do they actually mean? Kudos is a word borrowed from Greek (kydos) meaning praise, reward, recognition, admiration, applause. It has been operating in English-speaking countries for almost 200 years, and in business for several decades.
Kudos and Kudo Box in practice
Okay, we already know that kudos is a way of saying "thanks." And kudo box? A kudo box is simply a box (mailbox or voting box) into which team members can put kudos - cards with thanks/praise for another person. The box is opened from time to time and praise is read/distributed - depending on the needs and form adopted in the team.
Managing for Happiness
Jurgen Appelo, in his book Managing for Happiness (presenting Management 3.0 tools ) proposes using kudos as a way to motivate the team - by simply combining a kudo with a gift.
Its assumptions:
- everyone can give a kudos to another team member,
- apart from the thank you itself, kudos is associated with receiving a specific reward,
- the reward comes from the person giving the kudos,
- the sponsor of the prize is the company (the team manager allocates a specific budget, e.g. ~30$ for a gift related to receiving a kudo).
Jurgen does not specify how often kudos could be awarded, in what form, or what the reward would be. That's why I treat his proposal more as an inspiration than a ready-to-use solution.
Kudos in practice
So far, I have tried very different approaches to kudos in my teams (as a tool for motivating the team and an element that builds relationships and a good atmosphere), including: following:
- none – e.g. due to the team's reluctance to stand out in this way,
- giving kudos as part of the band's retrospective,
- mandatory (e.g. the retrospective participant must indicate at least one person who, in his opinion, deserved praise in the sprint),
- optional – with and without a limit of kudos,
- selecting the Hero of the Sprint, based on the number of kudos received,
- granting kudos on a continuous basis (using Kudo Box),
- with a limit (daily or per sprint) and without a limit of kudos,
- thrown into a physical or virtual box,
- with gifts for the distinguished ones.
And many other. Each approach had its advantages and disadvantages - but instead of describing them in detail, I will focus on my current way of dealing with kudos, combining the advantages of several of the above.
The rules are simple:
- Each team member can express appreciation for a colleague at any time during the two-week sprint by "throwing" a kudos into the virtual box. In practice, this means filling out a simple form on Slack.
- The kudos sent in this way goes to a private Slack channel, to which only administrators (Scrum Masters, people conducting team retrospectives) have access.
- The Scrum Master, during the team retrospective, "opens" the Kudo Box: he publicly reads all the collected Kudos. Kudos are often quite playful in nature - so it is a very attractive and relaxing part of any "retro".
- The person who collects the highest number of kudos in one retrospective is announced as the "Hero of the Sprint". The hero, in addition to splendor and glory (heroes are announced on public Slack channels, along with short information about recent achievements - e.g. in the form of a quote from the most interesting kudos), receives a gift funded by the project budget (usually a shopping voucher worth PLN 100).
- After the sprint (retrospective) ends, the Kudo Box is empty and ready to accept new kudos. The Scrum Master reminds you about the Kudo Box capabilities on an ongoing basis and a properly configured reminder on Slack.
