4 rituals that revolutionized my engineering teams

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Making sure all teams are aligned across an organization is important. Here are key rituals that you don’t want to skip. 

Agile methodology is the cornerstone of many engineering teams in today’s fast-paced tech environment. Most of us are familiar with Scrum and Kanban, and we diligently follow their rituals, from daily stand-ups to sprint retrospectives.

However, as any seasoned engineering manager will tell you, agile isn’t enough to build a successful team or a winning product, and most of the time, additional rituals can create stronger, more cohesive teams.

Data-driven alignment and improvement

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Every month, my team gathers for a “Numberzz” meeting. Key stakeholders include the engineering team, product, design, marketing, and business who discuss and track our data, goals, and key metrics. This provides an opportunity to spread awareness of the team’s objectives and essential metrics. In doing so, engineers gain context on their work, disbanding low motivation and creating shared accountability regarding numbers tracking. In these sessions, we: 

• Review metrics: we review the previous month’s stats, including our leading KPIs, important user and usage metrics, and any insights derived from the data.
• Open discussion: after presenting the data, the floor is open for discussion. Team members can suggest what else should be tracked and propose ideas to improve our metrics. This collaborative approach ensures everyone is aligned and actively contributing to our success.
• Actionable insights: by fostering an environment where questions and ideas are encouraged, we often uncover innovative ways to achieve better results. This ritual keeps everyone informed and empowers the team to take ownership of our goals.
• Track action items: The ideas raised during the meeting are converted into actionable tasks the team is responsible for completing. In the subsequent meeting, we review these action items to ensure continuity and the effectiveness of our ideation process.

Monthly ideation and collective creativity

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Innovation doesn’t happen in isolation; it thrives in a collaborative environment. Our monthly “ideation” meeting is a platform where engineering, product, design, marketing, and business team members are encouraged to propose product, marketing, and business ideas. 

Taking an active part in contributing to the product’s roadmap increases the team members’ motivation and accountability for the team’s success. Here’s how we make it work:

1. Safe space for ideas: everyone can suggest an idea, and we believe that there are no dumb questions/ideas. All ideas are valued, even if they aren’t immediately accepted.
2. Diverse contributions: by involving everyone in the ideation process, we tap into diverse perspectives and experiences. This often leads to creative solutions that might not emerge from a top-down approach.
3. Structured conversations: before each meeting, stakeholders have an opportunity to list their ideas and add comments to a shared doc. During the meeting we’ll eventually come to a consensus on whether the idea will be added to the roadmap or not. This ritual stimulates creativity and ensures the best ideas are identified and pursued.

Pushing technological boundaries

We hold a meeting dedicated to improving our technology and efficiency significantly. The demands of the product roadmap and daily tasks can often overshadow the need for technological evolution. Much like product ideation, it’s essential to provide a space where engineers can dream big and propose ambitious ideas that propel us forward. These sessions are crucial for pushing the limits and raising the bar. Areas of discussion include: 

1. Technological advancements: we discuss and implement projects such as incorporating a monitoring and alerting stack, using open telemetry, and adopting tools for managing feature flags and A/B tests.
2. Efficiency improvements: we cover topics like defining PR standards and other best practices to enhance our workflow, developer experience, and productivity.
3. Unlocking product barriers: technological evolution can often unlock product barriers, increase efficiency, and improve velocity, enabling us to deliver features faster and with higher quality.
4. Ambitious goals: by setting ambitious goals (i.e., deploying code 10 times faster), we challenge ourselves to think bigger and strive for significant improvements, fostering a culture of continuous growth and excellence.

Monthly stakeholder meetings to ensure alignment

Communication and alignment with stakeholders are crucial for any engineering team’s success. Our monthly meeting with engineering leaders, product, design, marketing, and other high-level business managers ensures relevant individuals from the company are on the same page. While product and R&D are often aligned, there could be friction points amongst other org subsects. 

Different members will have varying agendas and plans that, without structured discussion, could surprise the team and unexpectedly alter plans. When everyone is aligned and aware of what has been done and what each party aims to achieve, the plan becomes more streamlined. Things to discuss:

1. Progress updates: we provide updates on our progress and discuss current and future plans.
2. Conflict resolution: this meeting serves as a platform for raising conflicting opinions or priorities. By addressing these issues openly, we aim to reach a consensus and ensure everyone is aligned. Maintaining trust and psychological safety is important: remember to remind members that feedback being shared is constructive.
3. Strategic alignment: it’s a place for strategic discussions, ensuring our engineering efforts align with the broader business objectives.
4. Inclusive communication: by including marketing, sales, customer success, and all the relevant stakeholders in these discussions, we keep all departments informed and aligned, preventing any disconnects.
5. Minimized surprises: with structured discussions, we can anticipate and integrate all stakeholders’ different agendas and plans, reducing the likelihood of unexpected changes.

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London • June 16 & 17, 2025

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How to start?

This checklist offers a straightforward guide to adopting these rituals. Instead of tackling all four at once, I recommend a step-by-step plan to help ensure a smooth and successful transition.

1. First, discuss potential new rituals with your team. You can do it during your weekly 1:1s or raise them as topics for discussion during your retro meeting. Start with what you seek and how such practices might help.
2. I suggest starting with only some of these rituals at once, focusing on the one or two that solve an immediate pain. After you’ve established a cadence then gradually add the next ones.
3. Schedule the rituals you’ve identified as most useful to your team and spread them throughout the month. Make them recurring so they become a habit rather than a “one-off.”
4. Add an agenda for every meeting, explaining the purpose of the meeting, what the audience should expect, and what you expect from them.
5. Come prepared for every meeting – gather the important metrics, list the topics for discussion, encourage team members to speak at these sessions, and constantly seek to improve them so that they will always bring value.
6. Bonus: Ensure that the various ideas and initiatives raised are tracked and eventually completed.

Final thoughts

While Agile provides a solid foundation, I found that additional rituals are essential for fostering a high-performing engineering team.

These rituals drive alignment and innovation and empower team members to contribute actively to our success.