#PragmaThanks
One of Pragmateam's core objectives is that "learning and experimentation is recognised as an integral part of our culture".
In 2016 we found that people were regularly bringing this objective to life, whether it be experimenting with new techniques, organising a learning lunch or presenting at meetups, all with a positive impact on the rest of the team. But we were lacking a way to naturally yet formally thank, reward and recognise each other.
So we came up with the term ‘PragmaThanks’ to use as our own way of thanking colleagues for things - big or small - that they might have done, recognising them publicly and showing our appreciation. And then we decided to link this common habit of recognising someone to a more formal way of rewarding people for their support and contribution.
With the introduction of PragmaThanks we now have a cadence to allow reflection and public recognition:
Day-to-day, people make a public shoutout anywhere on Slack using “PragmaThanks @gtramontina for organising Friday’s Dojo, so many learnings on TDD. ”
All PragmaThanks mentions are automatically logged in a Google Sheet
At our 8-weekly offsite, we gather in a big circle and run a PragmaThanks ceremony, where everyone can formally award a PragmaThanks to the one person they want to recognise the most in that period (and a big hug is part of the prize too!)
Each one of those formal PragmaThanks are worth 1 PragmaPoint, which equates to $100 for the recipient to spend on learning: education, conferences, subscriptions, books etc.
PragmaThanks has been incredibly successful, so much so that “PragmaThanks” has now formed part of our vocab, both verbally and within Slack dialogue. Since we started it, we have had thousands of mentions of PragmaThanks in Slack and the team has formally given each other over 400 PragmaPoints (worth $100 each) to recognise good work or actions.
Below are examples of the great work from the team.
PragmaThanks to @sarahvako @juliano for bringing us together as Pragma, pushing us forward to do good things :tada:
PragmaThanks @gtramontina and @fagnerbrack for YOW! shareback today at lunch. Lots of great insights and learnings
PragmaThanks @dominik for experimenting on us today with the flash cards :ear::monkey_face:
PragmaThanks to @willmendesneto for pushing cross-team communication for stories in dev!
PragmaThanks @rodolfoprr and @ronaldo for organizing the Clean Code knowledge sharing session
PragmaThanks @gtramontina for bringing Woody Zuill to us.
PragmaThanks @wagnernunes for the focus and push on getting the Accounts metrics up in a screen so the team is more aware of the real things it is delivering
PragmaThanks @kathleen for an insightful workshop, feedback afterwards and sharing your last muesli bar in times of desperation :)
