The Niko-niko calendar is an Agile practice which aims to detect patterns of change of mood of a team over time.

Picture from Management 3.0

The technic is very easy: at the end of the day, each team member paste a sticker on a calendar to tell if he had a good day at work.

In other word, you probably ever went back to home from work and feel that you had a bad day, or you did not feel “productive”. That’s a red sticker.

After some time, you’ll see some color being dominant, it will give an insight of the mood of the team.

It is a good idea to take a look at the Niko-niko calendar during the Agile retrospective.

It is not exact science, it is just a simple tool to get some more informations about the team.

The Niko-niko calendar is also know as “happiness index”. Also note that “niko” means “smile” in the japanese language.

The first mention of the Niko-niko calendar is from an article from Akinori SAKATA in 2007.

But now, if you work with remote teams, and if it is not possible to use a physical calendar in the room, take a look at our service : TeamMood, an easy way to get a glimpse of the happiness of your coworkers !


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