Changing Teams with Music A Retrospective on a Year of Adding Music to Company and Team Journey Regional Scrum Gathering Tokyo 2024 KDDI Agile Development Center Tomohiro Nakajima

2 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Profile:Tomohiro Nakajima(@piyonakajima) Affiliation: KDDI Agile Development Center Co., Ltd. Concurrently at KDDI Corporation KDDI DIGITAL GATE Role: Product Owner / UX Researcher / Software Engineer While driving new co-creation projects with corporate customers through agile development, I am active as the product owner of "anycommu," a retrospective web service that promotes team building and business improvement. I also engage in retrospective support activities within the KDDI Group. Presented the lyrics and composition of "Fun Done Learn Song" at "Scrum Fest Sapporo 2022."

3 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Introduction

4 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Do you like music?

5 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Does your team have a theme song or specific music you associate with your work?

6 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation If your team has own music, Wouldn't it feel a bit embarrassing?

7 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation I created music for a retrospective method that originated in Japan

8 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Introduction • Music has often helped to bring countries, teams, and groups closer together. • Many nations have national anthems. • Some companies even have corporate anthems. • Throughout history, groups have made and sung music to unite them.

9 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Music has power Today, I want to talk about the wonderful experience of a team having music, drawing on the history of music's power and my own personal experiences.

10 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation History of Teams and Music

11 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation History of Nations and Music (1/2) • National Anthem ◦ Most countries have their own national anthems. ◦ A national anthem is • typically a patriotic musical composition, • praising the history, traditions, or struggles of a nation and its people.

12 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation History of Nations and Music (2/2) For example... • The British National Anthem 'God Save the Queen/the King' Composed in 1745 as a prayer for the safety of King George II and the nation, it gained widespread popularity in the theaters of London • The oldest national anthem still in use today is the Netherlands' "Wilhelmus," written between 1568 and 1572. ◦ This song was born during the era of the Dutch War of Independence

13 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Next topic is ...

14 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation History of Sports and Music(1/2) • Sports and music are very connected. • Music is very important in big sports events. ◦ For example, ◦ Olympic songs and anthems are chosen by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) or its partners. They are played during the Games and used in ads.

15 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation History of Sports and Music(2/2) I asked ChatGPT about Iconic Sports Anthems…. it mentioned several songs that are often played as anthems at sports events "Hey Jude" by The Beatles "Seven Nation Army" by The White Stripes "We Will Rock You" by Queen "Sweet Caroline" by Neil Diamond "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor and so on…

16 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation The last topic is ...

17 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation History of Companies and Music • In Japan today, more companies want to make their own songs. • Every year, over 100 companies join the "National Company Song Contest" in Japan. ◦ In 2023, this contest got three times more votes than in 2019, with 1.22 million votes. ◦ The contest updates these songs and shares them on social media and YouTube. • Masazumi Yugari says that ◦ company songs become popular when the economy changes. • helping to improve performance when times are good • bringing people together when times are hard https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20231027/k10014238371000.html

18 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation The case of GitLab • GitLab has a website called the GitLab Songbook. • The GitLab Songbook contains popular songs that have been arranged and re-arranged by GitLab team members. • The GitLab Songbook has many songs that mention GitLab's values, helping to strengthen these values ◦ https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/culture/songbook/

19 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Comments on merges Emojis on issues Commit Integrations that always continue All of the sdlc in one place GitLab is one of my favorite things Epics and roadmaps Containers and clusters Code repos and CI without getting flustered All the security shifting left brings GitLab is one my favorite things GitLab Songbook My Favorite Things(from sound of music) When the code breaks When the merge fails And it makes me sad I simply remember my favorite things That GitLab makes me so glad Arranged for the GitLab Songbook by Kaleb Hill, Antony Saba, Alexander Tanayno https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/company/ culture/songbook/#my-favorite-things

20 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation From Here, I will share my personal experiences… A Retrospective on a Year of Adding Music to Company and Team Journey

21 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation What’s KAG? (KDDI AGile development center) KDDI: a Japanese telecommunications company KAG: A group of DX engineers who have been committed to agile development for about 10 years within KDDI re-INNOVATE YOUR BUSINESS ”Be Agile, Update Culture” 社名 KDDIアジャイル開発センター株式会社 Address 2-10-1, Toranomon, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan Headquarters: Toranomon, Maizuru/Mishima/Naha Offices President and CEO Keiichi Kogure Business Agile development and maintenance businesses Establishment date May 12, 2022 Occupational ratio Engineers 82%, Designers 9%, Others 9%

22 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation The History of Agile Development at KDDI 2022 2021 2020 2019 2018 2017 2016 2015 2014 2013 Expansion of development projects to offshore/nearshore Corporate Cloud Service First introduction of Agile development at the company Launch of Agile Development Center (Initiation of Agile practices across various departments) Towards the creation of co- creation business Expansion of fields (Personal): au electricity, auHOME (IoT) Enhancing customer perspective: Strengthening and accelerating UI/UX efforts Establishment of KDDI DIGITAL GATE and Scrum Inc. Japan 5 400 + we gradually expanded in scale in 2023, we became a separate company from KDDI

23 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation KDDI's accumulated practical knowledge and what we can support Agile Development In-house developmentDevOps Service Design Design Thinking Cloud Native CCoE Based on the practical knowledge we have accumulated so far, we will support the development of new services and in-house production for our customers. KAG provides development support not only internally KDDI group but also to external organizations.

24 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation I created and presented music using a retrospective method called "Fun Done Learn" at this company

25 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation What is Fun Done Learn? • A retrospective method advocated in 2018 by Agile coaches in Japan • It has become widely popular in the country • Place the events that occurred in a Venn diagram-like illustration, categorizing them into one of the sections ◦ Fun (Fun things) ◦ Done (Completed Things) ◦ Learn (Learned Things) • The team discusses which category to assign each event to

26 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation What is Fun Done Learn? • Yasunobu Kawaguchi, a Japanese Agile coach and one of the proponents of Fun Done Learn, discusses the following points in his article: ◦ Japanese people have a characteristic where they cannot ignore problems ◦ In retrospectives, Japanese people tend to focus only on pointing out problems without being able to improve them ◦ There is a need for a Scrum methodology that fits the characteristics of Japanese people. ◦ "Fun things," "completed (Done) things," and "learned things" are all specific facts ◦ By using this method, the points of reflection in each session can be viewed more positively, realistic improvements can be identified, and continuous improvement activities can be facilitated more easily. https://agilejourney.uzabase.com/entry/2023/10/19/103000 I was deeply moved by this retrospective method

27 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Why I made a song of Fun Done Learn? • During the COVID-19 pandemic, we developed a web service for retrospectives specialized in Fun Done Learn in between work tasks. • Wanting to get many people to use this tool, I decided to do a sponsor talk at the Japanese Agile Conference. • I explored interesting methods rather than ordinary approaches. I knew “GitLab Songbook” then. • As a result, I created and presented a song about the retrospective method. • The song creation was reviewed by my team daily, improved, and created within a week. https://anycommu.web.app

28 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Fun Done Learn Song - English ver. Please listen to the song. Letʼs dance together! Today was a happy day(Fun!) Good job for the day(Done!) We learned so many things(Learn!) We understood completely (Fun Done Learn) Fun Done Learn Fun Done Learn Looking back with joy, all of us Fun Done Learn Fun Done Learn Let's try Fun Done Learn

29 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Fun Done Learn Song - English ver. Please listen to the song. Letʼs dance together!

30 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation What Happened after that?

31 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation IT Pleneurs, a company engaged in the education business for Talent Development and Organizational Development, hosted a webinar for me What Happened?

32 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Our colleagues danced with me at RSGT2023 What Happened?

33 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation The number of users for the developed retrospective tool has rapidly increased What Happened?

34 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation • Tsutomu Yasui, a Japanese agile coach and one of the proponents of Fun Done Learn, sang this song during the keynote at 'the Retrospective Conference 2023' in Japan. • Kazuki Mori, known as the "Retrospective Evangelist" in Japan, danced at the Retrospective Conference 2023 and Scrum Fest Niigata 2023. • The Fun Done Learn song was played during the video viewing sessions of Agile Conference at various companies. What Happened?

35 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Because of increasing the company's recognition by this song, I received an award within my company What Happened?

36 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation What Happened? There was a person who compiled the song I made and its charm in her blog. She also received an award within her company.

37 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation What Happened? I talked about how one person who helped me showed servant leadership when I made this song → It received a great response with over 20,000 page views. It was selected for Speaker Deck's '2023 - Most Viewed Decks'

38 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation What Happened? The following sequence emerged: - I created and sang the Fun Done Learn song → Increasing the company's recognition Increasing Fun Done Learnʼs recognition → Leading to some people attending job interviews Do I have to sing the Fun Done Learn song if I join the company? I learned about the company through the Fun Done Learn song. No! Don’t worry.

39 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation We are distributing cassette tapes of the Fun Done Learn Song on our sponsor booth today!!! Please participate in Fun Done Learn by writing on a sticky note. Then we will give you a cassette tape as a gift. Take a photo and post it on social media platforms like X, Instagram.

40 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Changing my Mindset • I created this song. Right after making it, I thought it was ridiculous. ◦ "What am I doing, creating music at a conference? Is this a foolish endeavor?"

41 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Changing my Mindset • I created this song. Right after making it, I thought it was ridiculous. ◦ "What am I doing, creating music at a conference? Is this a foolish endeavor?" • But as I mentioned, there has always been music in teams throughout history. ◦ It's the same in countries, sports, and companies. • The music I made gave energy to the company and organization ◦ Otherwise, this cassette tape would not have been made by our companyʼs marketing team. • Music made the team and the company more lively and fun. • There must be reproducibility in this approach.

42 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Proposal

43 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Why not introduce Music in your Team? • Why not overcome embarrassment and introduce music into your team? • Overcoming embarrassment and embracing music • I believe it doesn't have to be original or require composition skills. • GitLab created music by making parodies of existing songs, themed around 'GitLab Values'.

44 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation SunoAI • Automated AI Composition Service • For example, it might be interesting to summarize your company's core values or your team's inception deck and have them sung by Suno AI.

45 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Fun Done Learn Song - English Full ver. Letʼs dance together! Today was a happy day(Fun!) Good job for the day(Done!) We learned so many things(Learn!) We understood completely (Fun Done Learn) Fun Done Learn Fun Done Learn Looking back with joy, all of us Fun Done Learn Fun Done Learn Let's try Fun Done Learn We didn't understand a thing(Learn) It's somehow hard to talk(Learn) We need to write the test codes(Learn) PO is busy(Learn) Fun Done Learn Fun Done Learn When we are in pain, let's look back Fun Done Learn Fun Done Learn Let's pause and have a talk

46 KDDI Agile Development Center Corporation Fun Done Learn Song - English Full ver. Letʼs dance together!

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