It’s easy to get stuck, doing the same things. Doing something that’s suboptimal because there’s not time to invest in fixing the process, or something that used to be the best thing but is now a bit outmoded, a bit behind the times.
Here’s a list of things that have worked for me at different times:
1) Postmortems. Post iteration, if you’re working in iterations, or post release if not, look back and get a chance to rethink what went wrong or right.
2) Conferences and professional meetings. Interacting with colleagues who have solved the same problems you face in a different way provides new ideas.
3) Dedicating an hour a day at the beginning or end of the day for cleaning up those minor things that could be better, but that there might not be time to fix in the middle of a crisis. Incremental improvement is better than no improvement at all.
4) Go Crazy Day. Whatever name you give it, timeboxing a new technology exploration is a great idea.
5) Reading, and especially writing. This blog is partly to keep myself from getting stale. But when I’m not in a public posting mood, I have often kept a daily log of “one thing I learned today”. When I start feeling that there’s nothing to write, it’s time to shake myself up a bit.
I can't do all these things all the time, or even any of them all the time, but when I need a change, I know I have a set of tools. How do you keep yourself or your team out of a rut?
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