Building a great product is not just about having complete requirements or talented resources. Sometimes you can have both of these things, but the team still fails due to low confidence and morale. Boosting confidence can be challenging for teams. Especially teams that are going through transitions. Here are three agile practices you can use to boost any team’s confidence and morale.

1.  Team Names

Letting teams come up with fun names enhances team spirit and creativity. We have had teams that rally behind their team names and have lots of fun with them. From creating mascots based on the team names to theme songs that are played as they present their sprint plans and sprint demos, we have seen this simple activity ignite a lot of fun. Teams collaborate better when they have creative outlets, which ultimately boosts their confidence and morale.

2.  Fist of Five

This technique allows the team to gauge individual members’ confidence in the plan, discuss any major differences, and revise the plan if anyone has low confidence in it. Fist of Five is where everyone raises their hand at the same time with the number of fingers correlating to their confidence level, with five being high and one being low. Everyone raising their hands at the same time gives everyone an equal and fair chance to give input. This increases morale by building collaboration because everyone has a chance to show their opinion.

3.  Celebrate Successes

Teams usually celebrate when they finish a sprint or launch a product, but many times teams do not get feedback when their product is successful because they are already moving on to the next product changes. Give your team members information like number of users utilizing the new feature, additional revenue or leads generated from the change, or the number of subscriptions to the product. Show them direct quotes from the customers who are delighted by the product. Take the time to let the team know that their hard work has paid off. Doing so will give them even more confidence to build the next great thing for their customers.

How have you used these techniques to build team confidence? What other techniques have you used to build team morale? Please feel free to reach out so that we can chat about your experiences and ideas.