Get more done by making clear what needs to be done

Our recent item on the Definition of Done raised the question, if the Definition of Done and Acceptance Criteria both make clear what needs to be done for work to be complete, what’s the difference between the two?

The Definition of Done is common to all your work but Acceptance Criteria are specific to individual pieces of work (user stories or some other way of defining the items in your product backlog).

It’s a common question, so we’ve put together a blog post showing how to get the two of them working well together.

Introducing Sulu Fiti

We’re very pleased to introduce Sulu Fiti, our new Relationship manager. Sulu will be working with James Nicolle to support our growing roster of clients.

He knew a bit about us before joining, having done our Agile training in his previous role as Outreach Manager at Mahuki, Te Papa’s innovation accelerator. 

The common thing that came through when people talked about Boost was how much they love working here. It was a key driver for taking the role, because he knows how much people and culture matter. Having worked on projects like making it cheaper and easier for people to send remittances to the Pacific Islands, he found that Boost’s drive to have positive and lasting impacts aligned well with his own values and goals.

To go along with his new job, Sulu also has a new house, a doer-upper on the Kapiti coast, so he spends most of his free time with paintbrush or hammer in hand.

Virtual Introduction to Agile filling up fast

If you’re keen to do our free online Introduction to Agile, you better get in soon. The next three are booked up already.

The Intro is an interactive two-hour workshop that runs every second Friday. It’s designed for people who are curious about Agile and keen to learn from actual practitioners.

You can also book our two-day Agile Professional Foundation if you’re looking to kick-start your career with Agile certification. The next one runs on 10–11 August.

Using shared values to strengthen your team

A major initiative this year at Boost has been to harness the power of our shared values. Here’s what we’ve done, the results we achieved, and how you can do the same.

Our values are:

• Responsibility
• Servant leadership
• Courage
• Manaakitanga

We came up with these values by looking at the actual behaviours you see at Boost, then agreeing as a team how to describe them. They’re the way we achieve our purpose: Supporting others to create positive and lasting impacts. Our purpose points us all in the same direction and our values ensure we get there in lockstep.

Values Awards 

This year we instituted Values Awards to build on the benefits of having common values. Each month, four people are presented with a medallion recognising a specific way they’ve demonstrated one of the values. 

This makes the values real and embeds them in the rhythm of our work. Being reminded of the ways our colleagues embody our common values builds team spirit and reinforces the values. 

We’re already seeing the benefits of the awards. We recently sent out a TinyPulse survey asking if the team thinks we consistently stay true to our values. Everyone agreed we do. Here are some of the anonymous responses:

The values shone through even in lockdown.

The set of crystal clear values and ideals that every member of every team understands and lives by helps to create a culture that is consistently amazing to be a part of.

Even more so now with the medallions because it brings the values to the forefront and lets the whole team know who is showing our values.

The benefits are also coming through in key metrics. This year we have: 

• achieved our highest ever Team Happiness rating
• maintained full productivity during the COVID-19 lockdown
• grown our team by 16%, helping us deliver greater benefits to our clients.

It shows what you can do by agreeing on the values that matter to your team, then reinforcing and embedding these values in your day-to-day work.