Rituals

8th Light Apprenticeship - Day 2

Today I ate lunch with my colleagues around the table in the canteen. A simple ritual but one that I have not done in years. The majority of my working life has been in a environment where employees eat at their desks. To come together for half an hour, and eat lunch was enjoyable.

Another ritual at 8th Light is the handshaking. On arrival and departure each day, you greet all your fellow team mates with a handshake. Again, a simple action which shows respect. You can read about it here:

• Shake Things Up

I mentioned yesterday ‘Zaguku’. A daily learning session. Today Felipe led the session and talked about the Decorator Pattern. One of the behavioural patterns from the GoF book. By ‘decorating’ objects you can add different functionality to the underlying entity without any client knowing.

A weekly ritual for each apprentice is the IPM (Iteration Planning Meeting). I had my first one today. It consisted of getting together with my two mentors and planning the different tasks that I am to complete this week. It already makes me feel motivated and productive knowing I have stories to work on. In the past, I have found my energy and drive has fallen because there simply wasn’t a backlog of work feeding into the team I was on…So I had better get on with them…!