Attending the Agile Coach Camp in Washington, DC on August 1-2, 2015 – I offered to serve as a scribe in one of the sessions to which I found out that AgileLIB only allows for 1000 character posts – as can be imagined, I had a bit more to say.  Read below to find out more about a discussion I attended (and took notes in) regarding how to inject more physical activity and movement into agile teams – for more information on the sessions held at “Agile Coach Camp 2015 DC” check out AgileLIB at: http://agilelib.net/?event=accus15

“Kicking the Sitting Habit”

At the Agile Coach Camp in Washington, DC – Leslie Zucker (www.lesliezucker.com) convened a session entitled “Who wants to kick the sitting habit?” focusing specifically on how to inject more physical activity into the agile community.  To her credit, Leslie had session participants moving around, stretching and exercising during a Lean Coffee style conversation to drill into some of the topics related to this subject.  

The group dove into discussing causes and mitigations for what to do about “People being bored at work” – there was consensus amongst the group that “Sitting Wears You Out”.  The group then brainstormed a variety of things that you (or a team) could do to overcome boredom and increase engagement / energy in one’s work.  Ideas shared included:

• Creating a team push-up board (everyone does 100 push-ups throughout the day)
• Using a FitBit or Apple Watch to track fitness at the person or team level
• Working at a standing desk
• Do something to exercise your brain at work (mind-stimulating work)
• Provide sporting goods for employee / team fun (Impromptu Volleyball / Soccer matches)
• Inject/Demonstrate physical movement into work activities (Use a Pomodoro Timer, every time the timer goes off, stand up, walk around and stretch something out – use a stretching chart to work your way through the body throughout the day).

Next the group focused on things group members felt they could do to “inspire” movement amongst their team members and colleagues:

• Lead by example (don’t ask people to be active, model active work behavior yourself)
• Get out of the office and go for a walk (retrospective outside in the park)
• “Walking Meeting” or even better how about a “Running Meeting” (walk or run while you talk)
• Find out what kinds of activities / movement people like so you can invite them
• Sponsor/Organize/Support an in-office corporate fitness program
• Maintain the safety of the environment and/or activities/exercises introduced into it
• The nature of the movement should be focused on “activity” rather than “exercise”
• Behavior to inject movement into a work environment / team cannot be mandated (HR/EoE/ADA concerns) – people can be invited to move but should be respected if they decline
• Tell stories about the benefits of movement – “I feel great today because I climbed 20 flights of stairs to get up here”
• Track the Happiness Metric and see if injecting movement into the workplace or a team improvement is (Hypothesis is it will)
• Provide Healthy Snacks
• Join the Movement Movement – contact Leslie @DCWorkshopWoman for more info

Thanks again to Leslie for convening the session and getting us moving around right after lunch to burn a few calories and avoid the urge for an afternoon nap at Agile Coach Camp DC 2015.