 Okay, so before we start Hopefully, this is a good symbol of India and Bangalore. Is it? Great Okay. Hello everybody. My name is Krzysztof Czajka and I will talk about two things today feedback and candies I Work for the biggest e-commerce company in Poland named Allegro where I've been a scrum master and agile coach for more than four years now An important part of my job is to do experiments to change workplace for better Therefore, I will talk about such an experiment I did in Allegro in 2013 We are all here because agile means something for us even sometimes a slightly different thing But we know all know that feedback loops are a paramount importance in agile Special kind of feedback loop is pure feedback. It is special because it's about people. It's candy Authentic and not connected with hierarchy and it directly impacts employee engagement There are many proofs of that that we mentioned just two of them In the well-known Gallup employee engagement survey one of the 12 questions is during the last seven days I have received recognition or price for doing a good work and Those who answered yes work for successful companies full of engaged people The second example appeals to me even more US Department of Labor says that 64 percent of working Americans leave their jobs because they do not feel appreciated for what they do and Since people are the most important part of every company Peer feedback as part of companies culture can directly impact its competitive advantage But we do not always know how to do it how to make peer feedback part of companies culture how to make it both frequent and valuable and This is what is my story about I'll talk about the game before because in fact this is a game And I'm sure that some of you will be inspired to try similar agile workplaces How I know this because this is simple yet powerful and Although it was running the big corporation it fits company of any size it can be a small startup a middle-sized company or a big corporation So let's talk I'll first talk about the reasons behind the experiment Then I will explain simple rules of it We will see some tweaks to that we make to make this experiment even better Then I will answer question how I knew it will be a success before we will launch it in the entire company Some lessons learned and examples of the best feedbacks people got in this game So back in 2013 there was a very heavy system in bonus system in place in Allegra People were saying that it has a lot of drawbacks And I asked them they said that in particular it took took no Took them an extra week every quarter to fulfill demands of this system quite a lot It was based mainly on management opinion Bonus was always expected, but the bonus shouldn't expected right and It took no soft side of performance into account So I looked for alternatives and soon I came across merit money by Jurgen Appelo and It actually addressed all of the drawbacks of our existing system in particular It took no special effort rather than one week every quarter It was based on peer feedback rather than management opinion Bonus was unexpected not so obvious as in and existing hours our existing system And it took collaboration and soft side of performance into account So let me now just explain simple rules of this game We have to use our imagination So imagine this is Monday morning. You are at your office to take part of this game and Therefore you receive four cards You can give these four cards to anybody you think that increase company's performance The important thing is that there's no single definition what performances. This is just your call So in your team, there are those guys who perform really great There are those who perform not so well But there's this exceptional guy in your team that does great things and he did such a thing on Monday morning So we have your four cards and you decide to give one of your cards to this guy And you see how glad how delighted he is Somebody just appreciated his hard work and Then on Tuesday nothing special happens But on Wednesday the guys from DevOps team did an Extraordinary tweak in environment that allowed your team to perform their work in half of the time So this situation calls for extra measures So actually you take two of your cards and you give it to this guy and now you see how Glad he is somebody from other team appreciated his hard efforts great, but You're not the lazy one, right? You also do some special things great things to increase company's performance and you did such a thing on Thursday And you should receive two cards from your colleagues and Right now you are on the other side and you felt this special feeling in your guts somebody appreciated your hard efforts this time and Then it's Friday the CEO of the company Says it was a great week. I will put 100% of the weekly bonus on the table But remember bonus should be expected So what do you do? You actually will toss a coin if it's heads Bonus gets distributed proportionally if it stays not So you randomly pick some guy. He tosses a coin and It stares bonus is not distributed bad luck But what happens with the bonus itself? Does it disappear? Now it's being actually rolled over to the next week. So still have your chance It's not another Monday morning You receive another four cards, but this time it is much much easier for you by the Time of your work while you work you start to observe special things people do and one by one You appreciate them. It is much much easier for you this time But again, you're not the lazy one There's some great things right and you'll see two additional cards and There's another another Friday morning But this time the CEO of the company says the company's performance dropped to 50% I'll put 50% of weekly bonus on the table So right now you have 150% of bonus on your table Again, you randomly pick another guy. He tosses a coin and It's heads you hit the jackpot bonus is gets distributed proportionally So these were the simple rules of this game So I decided to decided to start a simple experiment But in order to start the experiment you actually need People so I went to one team and I explained the simple rules of the game and I asked them to join Then they voted and they said no That was disappointed why so ask them and they thought that actually this Experiment is against the existing bonus system and against the company. They were afraid to do it and The second thing is that they thought that need to join as entire team Not as single persons So I just explained it wrong in the wrong way Then I went to another team and I said that this is actually not against the existing system. This is just to support it and that Participation is optional. There's not for the entire team and They asked for a time And after a while half of the team joined the experiment Then I went to another team and another and with three teams and 16 people were about to start It was good enough to start The experiment was designed to last four months. It was divided into weekly iterations just to learn faster And it was made in a fail-save mode, which means that participation was always optional You could join or leave at any time and also it involved Candies not the real money just for safety Let me present you what were the tweaks. So this is the card. How do we look like at the beginning? You can see the holder name very nice picture issue date and the name of the experiment What we started I started to observe that people are given these cards not only Within the team experiment team, but also outside of the team So it looked like it has a lot of Potential to be anti silo technique. I said great. It's a very good good thing but People from outside of the experiment didn't know what this experiment about not really So I made a simple wiki page and I put the link to this wiki page on the cards themselves And it worked great Then another observation was that people started to write what they think for on the cards themselves And I said great. It gives these cards even more value Why don't we put special place for it on the cards themselves? And right now I have to present you to Martin Martin was the only person from his team who didn't join this experiment. He said he's a grown-up He doesn't play childish silly games. This is not for him And after a while after a few weeks he said he approached me and said you know Give me my cards. I want to join it and I asked why you didn't want to what had just happened and He answers You know, I was using the cause the other I received to thank others But since they write what they think for on the cards that too much value just to waste them But give me my fresh cards And I said great. You can have them So you see that the cards were given even more value But there was some drawback People were very reluctant to exchange their valuable cards for candies at time of exchange You cannot Have a cake and eat it too. But is it actually that true? Why don't we just stamp the cards at the time of exchange and This way you can still have your precious card and the candies It was great. It worked Another tweaks were with the bonus and remember this is what the CEO decided and this is not always 100% Which at the beginning we based them on companies financial results, but they were changing too rarely once a month So then we moved to number of successful releases. They were two at the time during the week but people complained that They have no so much influence on it And then a Brilliant idea came into my mind. I Said why don't we hit kill two birds with one stone? Why don't we put another feedback loop in the system? Why don't we ask product owners for opinions about performance of their teams and use these opinions to set the bonus amount? And it was a great idea with two feedback loops in the same system Yet another tweak were was with the Currency we had these small little candies at the beginning then we tried several different variations And then one day I asked my beautiful wife who's here on this very spot and Of course, she bought an expensive fudge candies So I was angry with her and Now I have to explain two things to you first is that Fudge candies are called little cows in Poland. That's why you see cows on the rubber The second thing is that every country has its special memory from your childhood This is fudge candies in Poland. This is probably the same as Gulab Jamun in India. If I pronounce it correctly Or marshmallow in US So we can imagine that people just went Crazy they were exchanging a lot of their cards for candies. It was a real madness so this smart move actually Increased fun in this game, but also increased the amount of sugar and Then it just happened that at the end of the fourth month at the end of the experiment my mother company Naspers, which is available all around all around the globe introduced a new bonus system and I was told that I cannot change it And I was struck My brilliant idea was just rejected But then on the second thought I Looked at the results of the game until now and ask people and it seemed like that 97% I can repeat that 97% of participants wanted to stay with the game Number of participants doubled from 16 to 32. I remember this was a small experiment 65% of cars were exchanged for candies and 16% of cars were exchanged between teams. So remember the anti-silo characteristic People said that they like this game because it gives them visible proof of their contribution That this is easy physical means of appreciation. It is a catalyst of appreciation They like that this is immediate They like of course the nice moment of appreciation and The motivation when you get the card and later when you look at it And of course possibility to get the sweet price So it looked like the game as it is now has a lot of potential For a small cost you can have a lot of positive energy You can discover your own value, but also you can discover what is valued by your peers So I talked to my manager and we decided to launch it so Since the start we had two systems an official with money and Supportive bottom-up of candies But this time company pays for candies not my wife one year after we started started we had 233 participants in four different physical locations and Actually, it became part of companies culture People when people wanted to appreciate each other they said I want to give you a French candy Then we went through some restructure and currently we're trying to relaunch it, but this is actually another story So just to wrap up The lessons learned is that The game is simple yet powerful You should start small a couple of people a couple of teams You should introduce it in a very soft way Always a participation always optional no force And of course you need a motivated true leader to run the experiment until it gets critical mass Now let me present you the best appreciation messages people receive in this game So they thank for Asking any potent question for sharing a lunch for Telling that truth for being a true leader for being earlier at work and Just for being what they are We had so many feedbacks that we actually made a collage and this is this one And near the head of the cow. There's the best of the best and this is this one It's actually in Polish, but I can translate it to English for you if you want to But first have to warn you it contains explicit language So my question is do you want to see it? Okay, so just for your own responsibility twisted Thank you very much. What are your questions? The money was never there. It was a like plan when the beginning we started in very Delicate way like face a way not to involve money from the start just candies just to see how it's working and then So it was like to replace or support bonus system But then I was told that I cannot play with money, right with the bonus actually so we just Finished as the like a kudo technique kudo cards So at the beginning it was to be then exchange for money Afterwards, but then it worked very well because you could have When we were told I was told that I cannot change the existing bonus system, right? We had the experiment in which people were getting cards. It was nice, right appreciation message And then you could have the candy for the card also. It was another nice thing Some people even got were using their Candies to thank others so not only cars, but also the candy they got Yeah No, they didn't have to because we stamped the card, right? So you should you could you had the appreciation message, but also some sweet to make it even More nice Right. No, we didn't get to this point actually, right? It was the intention at the beginning, but then the bonus system changed and you know, we were just blocked to play with it So it I understand your question So it actually depends on the manager, right? If the manager manager takes into account of these nice cards, it's up to him, but this is not like official It he could be aware because actually at the time We were we are valuing valuating people by the Peer feedback, but the Britain great feedback by this official card Probably will do something like this because it's a lot of issues to exchange cars between Physical locations. You have to ask somebody who is driving there and giving the car electronic electronic I think this is a good idea But the paper has this, you know, special things There was a talk yesterday about, you know, keynote the beginning about the the paper is much much better in many ways But I wouldn't say that the electronic card Have no value. They have but still if you get this card and you give it to somebody It's much much meaningful or more meaningful to take all of my cards that I received and give it to you at the end of the year, for example yes, so Then what were wrong actually and the polls the nation I'm from have no issue together negative feedback The issue was with the positive feedback, right? So people often say that Why should I say something Appreciate you. This is your work, right? This is normal. Why? so this actually Attacked this issue this problem Yes, so this is up to you right as a participant of the game. Sometimes people get you another feedback, right? The card for what? Right, so it works both ways. I know the engineers that don't want to talk at all but they take this card they write it down and They see how when the somebody leaves the room and It works much better than nothing People were pulling my leg like Okay, give the cards and they will just exchange cars between ourselves and get the candies right, but it was not so often and Since we had this written feedback on the cards. It was really hard to do it You had to have a lot of time to do it to get some some candies Yes Yes, but then we moved that you have you can exchange only cards that have a written sentence, right? Hey Have 50 of them and give me candies. Yeah But it was so you could observe if the people are you know trying to trick the system It was not about money. So I have no experience. What would happen if you there were money involved Probably some different things and I would control this game more more strict, right? Or if the money is not so big then I wouldn't do it probably but I don't have this experience So I cannot tell so that I'm sorry girl question. They are Very various people very different characteristics and you know Everybody is different and there were those who were exchanging a lot of their cards a lot of their cards There were those that they were getting the sheet of paper and just Leaving it right laundering or something So it depends but the Martin example He didn't want to play at all and then he was like I wouldn't say forced But encouraged by his team to do it But it took time so it depends Still after two three years two years actually we have the teams that are exchanging a lot of their card And they are just asking me. Hey, I need another sheet of paper another another give that give us They even when they get the sheet of paper, they are writing they Not obsolete but the feedback they had to Give like a week ago and they run off the cards immediately and I need another one But there are those to say I don't want to do it at all And it's fair enough. So I encourage you to try it But again, you should start very small and not force people to do it Just to encourage them by the cards and it works Whose idea was it? Was it top down or bottom up top down? I've heard experiments like that So actually when the top manager or CEO goes to people and say, okay We'll introduce the kudo cards and you shouldn't exchange them people are Exchanging them So people don't trust this top down things like hey exchange kudo card. Uh-huh. We will So it took like a couple of months for us to to you know make it working and Once you do it, it works for a long time at least in our company. I run off the time. Thank you very much and enjoy your meal