Sprinting Out of Stuckness: Overcoming Moments of Stuckness to Support the Creativity Flow in Agile Team Settings

Abstract

Multidisciplinary agile teams working in fast paced, delivery-oriented sprint cycles of two weeks can experience moments of stuckness. Typically, these moments can be characterised by the inability to continue, which can be quite detrimental in agile settings, where time is pressured. This paper aims to explore these moments of stuckness, to understand when and why they occur and to understand the different strategies Scrum teams use to overcome them, both on a personal as well as team level. A combination of interviews and observations were conducted with six Scrum team members and two experts to understand their process and experiences while working in an agile set up. We have identified five strategies, which strongly rely on agile values of collaboration, communication, and creativity. These are: looking for expert guidance, open communication, creating spike stories, visual communication and incubation. The findings from this study provide both practice and academia with a deeper understanding into how can creativity be supported in agile settings.

Characteristics of paralinguistic communication indicating pre-resonance during co-creative design grasped by decision tree analysis

“…Gonçalves et al have discussed its internal role, highlighting its part in supporting inspiration peaks among designers (Gonçalves et al, 2013), while many other studies have focused on its external functions of enhancing interactions such as examining, understanding, and agreeing on sets of concepts and modalities in interactive experiences (Bilda et al, 2008). Effective interpersonal and emotional communication stands out as a crucial factor when fostering group engagement and collaboration (Park, 2007) and when overcoming bouts of creative stagnation, thus promoting the flow of creativity (Shah et al, 2019). These types of communication are employed in a multimodal fashion in practice (Schuller et al, 2013), encompassing the phonetic and non-phonetic, the verbal and non-verbal, as well as the linguistic, paralinguistic, and non-linguistic.…”

Characteristics of Interpersonal Phonetic Communication in Resonance During Co-Creation

“…Gonçalves et al discussed its internal role among designers as a stimulus to support inspiration peaks (Gonçalves et al, 2013), while most other studies have focused on its external role in improving interactions such as examining, understanding, and agreeing on sets of concepts and modalities in interactive experiences (Bilda et al, 2008). Effective interpersonal and emotional communication is a critical factor in enhancing group involvement and collaboration (Park, 2007) and overcoming moments of being stuck to support the flow of creativity (Shah et al, 2019). The roles of these types of communication, in practice, are achieved multimodally (Schuller et al, 2013): phonetic and nonphonetic, verbal and non-verbal, and linguistic, paralinguistic, and non-linguistic.…”

Novice Designers' Use of Prototypes as Communication Tools

“…A central element of the social nature of design is the communication among multiple individuals engaged in a design process (Bucciarelli, 1988). Prior research has established that effective communication can create a shared understanding (Cash et al, 2017;den Otter and Emmitt, 2008), aid in the synthesis of disparate individual knowledge (Deken et al, 2012;Dong, 2005), and facilitate collaboration (Kleinsmann et al, 2013;Shah et al, 2019) in design teams. At the same time, it is equally important for designers to communicate with individuals outside of design teams.…”