How we make the Valley Scrum-ready…

“Coming together is a start. Cohesion is progress. Collaboration is success.”

I firmly believe Henry Ford would have been very comfortable in our Nice Code Valley. We come together to work together. We stick together to overcome team challenges. Furthermore, we’re motivated to succeed and to continue to grow together. Our Valley is the place to be. Why? We offer the best conditions for teamwork! Find out what that means here! 

Our philosophy is that you can only work well if you feel at home in your work environment, and the time you spend in the office is a considerable part of your day. For that reason, it’s important to us that everyone at the Valley is both happy and comfortable. 

At Nice Code Valley, we offer a wealth of all-inclusive benefits: 

• Free coffee, juice and fruit, all day long
• A balanced breakfast buffet and varied lunch options
• Massages & hot tubs for wellness and good vibes
• After work parties with free drinks, etc. 
• Chill-out areas with deckchairs, swings and hammocks 
• A wide range of sports facilities including a volleyball court, a stability training area and a pool 
• The best equipment with top hardware and ergonomic furniture, like height-adjustable desks by Yaasa and stylish stability balls 

 What else do we offer our nicepeople?

Open-plan Offices with Enough Space for our Scrum Teams

Our offices in Saaz and Graz feature open floor plans with space for creative ideas. In concrete terms, this means that our Scrum teams can all sit together during meetings. The free space on our walls can be used for visualising task boards, i.e. pin boards, whiteboards and Post-Its have plenty of space. Each Scrum team also has guest workstations so that the Product Owner, Scrum Master or stakeholders can sit directly with the team when needed. The Product Owners and Scrum Masters sit with their communities to make exchanging ideas as easy as possible. Inviting meeting rooms with modern equipment are essential for reviews with stakeholders or retrospectives with the team. If a team member needs time to work undisturbed, there are separate workplaces with mobile phone-free zones. Our teams simply find free spaces for their daily stand-up meetings. Quiet zones or islands where you can retreat for short meetings or phone calls are also essential to our landscape. 

Useful Tools for Agile Collaboration

We use the YouTrack tool by Jetbrain for our agile project management. Youtrack provides an overview of the virtual task boards of the individual Scrum teams, as well as the backlogs of the Product Owners. The status of the epics already prioritised by our stakeholders can also be seen in the Epic Backlog and the corresponding board.

A helpful feature of YouTrack is the associated knowledge database. Here, all the information that the Scrum teams need is quickly at hand, whether that’s a refresher of the Scrum process, checklists, the “Definition of Done”, or the guidelines the team has committed to (performance criteria, quality criteria, GitFlow, etc.). 

We use Google Meet for virtual meetings. Google Meet features screen sharing, a chat function and break-out rooms. 

We use Google Chat for informal exchanges. Every Scrum team has its own chat group, so they can quickly and easily conduct daily business. The Communities of Practice also use their chat groups for cross-team exchanges. 

Due to the Corona-induced home office situation, we currently use the Mural tool for digital whiteboards. This tool offers great possibilities, especially for retrospectives. A timer, private mode, and the ability to reveal and uncover agenda items are some of Mural’s super practical features. Using Mural, which the Scrum Master moderates and navigates through an online tool, it’s possible for every team member to contribute to a virtual whiteboard. What’s more, the virtual guests can download a copy of the virtual whiteboard afterwards or edit it later. We also like to use Retromat to inspire our retrospectives.

What other perks can we brag about?? 

To shorten the wait until our next Scrum gets started, we offer Nice Code Valley branded chocolates, booklets with the most important Scrum information and super cool Planning Poker cards for new members. We’re of the opinion that little gifts build fine friendships 😀 We are particularly proud of one gift: each new team member receives a new mousepad with a picture representing their Scrum team.

All aboard! 

So that’s the secret to our success. Okay, it’s not a secret any more, but I like to tell you why things work the way they do. Our secrets to success are the environment we work in, and the settings and tools that are available to our nicepeople, but the greatest contribution to our success comes from the team members themselves. That’s another story though…

Want to be part of our journey? Apply here!