I was reminded today how much that matters. In the retrospective the things people care about, things they’d really like to do, but cannot because all the other work is ‘scheduled’ is what gets more and more voices join to join in, ideas being thrown in by even the quietest of team members.
I tried on a couple of occasions to make joy the goal of the team but scheduled work always took over. A deadline of this or another making always created more work or help that is needed to get some other team over the line and pulled us away from that focus on creating joy for us and our clients.
I was working very hard to help create space for joy by only working on a single item/epic at the time yet still that is not enough if that epic is not creating joy and its tentacles of boredom and bureaucracy very quickly filled all the space and got a stranglehold on our joy of getting together every day.
As I’m looking for a new ‘adventure in product’ I am going to try again to make joy the central part of my and the product’s mission and vision. If I cannot do that, there’s a good chance we can improve on our idea of the product … and I think you should too.
What is your current mission? How is your product bringing joy to your customers and equally important to the teams that grow and look after that product?
I help teams and stuff 
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