Rituals for teams
Rituals are an important part of any team. They build predictability, helps bring the team members together, and set clear expectations for how we treat each other. Done right, rituals can add to the psychological safety on a team. Here are some rituals I have implemented on teams I have managed over the years:
WEEKLY/BI-WEEKLY RITUALS
Monday morning stand-ups (15 min/week)
We started doing these about 2 years ago and it is one of the few rituals we are stuck with. The idea is we get together for 15 minutes every Monday morning and share one Highlight and one Lowlight from the previous week. The highlight and lowlight can be work related OR personal. It is SUPER important we don’t make this a status update. To ensure that we time each other so that each person gets 1 minute to share their highlight and lowlight.
UX Shareouts (1 hr/2 weeks)
This is an hour long forum for UXers to share their work. Our team grew to a size a while ago where we couldn’t do design reviews with the whole team. We still felt a need for everyone to be aware of each other’s projects, and for UXers to get practice presenting their work in a friendly forum. That’s how the Shareout came about. We spend an hour together, with 3 UXers getting 18 minutes each to Show & Tell. They can define if they would like feedback (right away or offline) or if this is just for sharing. This has been a pretty lightweight method to keep the whole team on the same page.
Love this illustration by Icons 8 showing a very common ritual, bonding over food and drinks, alcoholic or non alcoholic. I have been known to bond over turmeric lattes and kombucha
MONTHLY RITUALS
Monthly SkillShare (1hr/month)
We all have unique skills to share. The monthly skillshare brings us together to learn from each other. Every month someone signs up to teach a thing, and then teaches them to the whole team. The ‘thing’ can be anything and doesn’t have to do anything with work. Examples of skills I have learned from this ritual: Salsa making, Cold brew brewing, Macrame, pivot tables in Google Sheets, how to create gifs etc. This is a really fun gathering and optional for all, so people can skip classes they might not be into.
You Rock! Award (5 min?/month)
This is an award passed from teammate to teammate, once a month. The idea is it’s a low key way for us to recognize each other. The rules are simple, last month’s winner decides who this month’s recipient should be. There is no documented eligibility criteria. The award giver can decides why someone on the team deserves the award. It might be because they personally helped out someone on the team, or they came up with the perfect solution to a hard problem, or because they dealt with a personal life issue like a rockstar. Pretty lightweight way to keep the gratitude and appreciation train going on the team.
ANNUAL RITUALS
Holiday Party
We started this ritual 3 years ago and it has become one of the big things we look forward to every holiday season. Team holiday party and dinner! We typically do some holiday-ish tradition every year like a white elephant gift exchange or Secret Santa etc. Most importantly, the leads take this opportunity to thank everyone personally for their contributions every year. As in, we stand in a circle as the lead goes around individually telling each person how they have contributed to the team, the culture, and the product space.
AS NEEDED RITUALS
There are other smaller rituals we practice throughout the year. Some of these are as small as recognizing our achievements on team chats and others involve celebrating each other with champagne (or sparkling cider/water).
Big Reviews
Every time someone has a successful review, we give them a shoutout on the team chat. We also share their deck that was used for the presentation. This celebrates the person who did the review but also brings awareness to their work.
New Teammates, Birthdays & Promotions
We end up celebrating milestones like new folks joining us, birthdays on the teams, or promotions about once a month. We usually couple them together and celebrate over lunch with a glass of champagne or sparkling water (or still water, you do you!). It’s an easy way to gather and celebrate milestones together. We also throw each other baby showers, wedding showers, new book showers..Basically celebrating any big personal milestones.
RITUALS FOR YOUR TEAM
The key with rituals is most of them need to be tweaked as the team grows and changes. The rituals need to evolve with the team. The list above is some ideas you could use to start a ritual, but tweak it so it works for your team and evolve it as the team changes. Hope you have fun with these!
