A few days ago, I got a note from a Scrum Master who is a client of mine.  He wanted to know how to recognize team members in an agile environment. Recognizing that with agile we start with the team, and work collaboratively toward a goal, so recognition should most often be for the whole team.

But how do you show appreciation for those that go above and beyond in a sprint or over a release?

Here is what I wrote back:

This is a good question, and one that I get a lot. How do recognize individuals working in an Agile environment when we celebrate and think at the whole team level?

The short answer is: what does the team want to do?  And I don’t mean that to be smart.  In Agile, everything starts and ends with the team.  So, while the team is responsible for doing all the work for product development and delivering on their commitments, they should also be given the authority and responsibility to recognize and reward superior performance among themselves.

Organizations that truly understand the agile mindset are relinquishing control from a managerial and departmental context in many ways. Some allow teams a budget every sprint to reward star performers, sort of an MVP for the sprint, if you will.  Others use gift cards in the same manner.  Some companies even budget something like $100 per month for each team member to dole at to others as she sees fit.

There are probably many ways to get creative in this space, and you would be surprise what your teams come up with on their own — you don’t have to solve this problem all by yourself. Only be willing to listen to their suggestions, no matter how seemingly outlandish at first, and allow them to experiment and learn.