šDIY Post-It Recyclable User Stories
A responsible activity with the environment, with the budget and with the sense of belonging of work teams.
When I worked as a Scrum Master, one of the stationery items that I used the most in my daily life (and the Scrum Team as well) are the famous Post-It notes.
Although I try to make a responsible use of this input, it is impressive how quickly and easily they are consumed in the blink of an eye.
This, in principle, clashes a bit with my ecological sense of things, plus companies usually donāt have infinite funding for post-it notes. However, whatever the reason, making reasonable use of this material is common sense to me.
Thatās why looking for possibilities where I didnāt have to take out of my pocket a lot of money (in amazon there are ready to buy solutions), I proposed to the Scrum Team to make our own recyclable Post-It user stories, investing little, helping the planet, and being conscious and responsible ā¦. and itās also a lot of fun to do some crafting from time to time.
This is the story of what and howā¦
- A cardboard cutter or scissors. Although I recommend the former so that the cuts look cleaner. Remember to protect the cutting surface to avoid damaging it.
- Eva rubber or EVA Foam: For a good price you can find a pack of 10 different colors, which in my opinion is enough.
- Adhesive marker board. Usually also at an affordable price it is possible to find 2 meters long by 45 cms wide.
- A ruler.
- Graphite pencil.
- A couple of post-it notes (they can be used). To have the exact cutting measurements, although if you donāt want to use post-it notes, I will tell you that a traditional square post-it note measures something like 7.7 x 7.7 cm.
- Patience. Sorry, I donāt know where to buy this; let me know if you know whereā¦
- Estimated time. One hour or maybe a little more. Donāt forget to take a break for a snack or coffee to rest your hands.
Try to make a small MVP of how a post-it would look like on the eva rubber surface by cutting it to the exact size of the post-it, or maybe a little bigger.
Do the same with the adhesive paper and even if you like, you can make a kind of āpre-printedā template on the adhesive paper.
Play as much as time and materials allow with what you have about what would work well for the team dynamics.
At this point, there are no rules or preconceived ideas about design. What worked for us may not work for you, so feel free to modify and experiment as much as you like.
Once you have an idea or concept that you finally want to materialize, make the cuts both on the eva rubber and on the adhesive surface. From here on the work could become very mechanical, so itās up to you to figure out the best way to do itā¦
I assure you that once you have your first DIY post-it ready, you wonāt stop until you finish, and with a good amount of them that will allow you to use them on a board during a sprint, or until you run out of materials or get tired, whichever comes first.
If you look at the image, we left a margin of 1 cm to the left of our stories, that is, the cut of the eva rubber (or eva foam) is not 7.7 x 7.7 but 8.7 x 7.7 cm, since we wanted to rescue the spirit āper seā of the post-it in terms of color. In addition, we thought that this would allow us to classify them by some particularity and allow us to make certain readings at a glance on the board.
After a whileā¦
And finallyā¦
You can use acrylic markers or marker pens, very easy to clean with an eraser (although not so clean), however here the main problem is that if someone passes near the board or even when sticking them, the text could be erased, not to mention that you could stain your hands or clothes.
To avoid this, for our next sprint the team proposed the idea of using permanent markers like sharpies or similar, and then at the end of the sprint, they would be removed with some cotton with alcohol or some similar remover.
Finally the user stories are easily reusable using some normal adhesive backing or double-sided tape.
An interesting task to do from this could be to keep track of how many post-it notes we have saved per sprint.
While at the beginning the number might not be important, after several sprints, several plannings and together with the experience of multiple teams, the numbers should surely be much more representative from the economic to a sense of ownership for having made our own original user stories (DIY), and also, with respect for our resources and planet.
Win-Win-Win.
I canāt thank you enough for taking the time to dive into this reading. Your support means a lot, and Iām genuinely thrilled youāre a part of this journey.
Your thoughts, opinions, and feedback are invaluable to me. Iād love to hear what resonated with you or any ideas you might have. So, donāt hesitate to drop a comment or reach out ā letās keep the conversation going!
Until next time wonderful readers.
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