How is your cycle?

noun
noun: cycle; plural: cycles
1. a series of events that are regularly repeated in the same order.

At Komuhn we have made a compromise between convenience – the ability to better organize with others who follow the more popular cycle: 9 to 5, 5 days job, 2 days weekend, start on monday, end on sunday – and adaptation – what serves us better depending on: our decisions, available capacity, seasons, etc.

Lately we have been struggling with the size of our monthly cycle. One month feels too short for our current rhythm. So we’re thinking of duplicating the size of the cycle into two months and have 6 monthly cycles a year instead of 12.

This is how it used to look like:

1 month cycle > routines:

• Every day (except weekends) - Daily async checkin [repeats daily]
• 1st monday of the month - Monthly team meeting + Demos on championships*
• 2nd monday - Weekly team meeting [repeats weekly]
• Penultimate friday - Team retrospective
• Last monday - Weekly team meeting + Commitments session**
• [Cycle restarts]

This is what we’re trying now:

2 months cycle > routines:

• 1st monday of 1st month - Monthly team meeting + Commitments session
• Every day (except weekends) - Daily async checkin [repeats daily]
• 2nd monday - Weekly team meeting [repeats weekly]
• [Mid cycle] 1st monday of 2nd month - Project upgrade***
• Last monday - Weekly team meeting + Demos on championships
• Last friday - Team retrospective
• [Cycle restarts]

* Championships: Categories of tasks related to.a certain role, topic or project. In our case: Care, Colab (aka Organization), Communication, and Money. Rotating every cycle between team members.
** Commitments: Based on the month's progress and retrospective feedback we propose our commitments for the next cycle.
*** Project upgrade: Series of workshops to develop and improve tools, routines, topics, etc.

Notes:

1. For the same amount of time we have now 5 sessions less.
2. We gained an upgrade day per cycle that used to be sporadic.
3. We switched the position of the commitments session with the demos so the proposals would take into account also the learnings from feedback in the Demos session.

Reasons:

1. We were often postponing sessions because of lack of capacity.
2. It often felt like we were just starting to get on the cadence when it was time to rotate roles/championships.
3. On top of these routines we have different ones specific to other projects and teams that at this time we feel are too many to be able keep the same rhythm.
4. As we progress into long term thinking it seems natural to adapt our rhythms with the same mindset.

How do you organize your cycles with your teams? Do you stick with the norm or are hacking it? What are the problems you encounter?

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