How adopting an agile workflow has changed the way we grow
We’re not your average corporate caterer. In fact, we’re really not much of a corporate caterer at all. We don’t mess around with tasteless chicken, lukewarm buffets, or soggy sandwiches in a box. And we’re sick of the tired and unappealing reputation of office lunch.
Those who have tried our food say we feed software engineer better than anyone. So, we figured, why not start working like them?
Software + Sifted Are Not as Different as You’d Think
Like software teams, we offer a product and a service on a recurring model. The only difference is, we put out a product every single day. Instead of releasing updates and bug fixes every two weeks, we release a brand new menu each day. This leads to a team living in the moment, with a singular focus on each day’s release. It also means it can be challenging to move the needle on larger projects while battling the operational day-to-day of our business. We needed a solution to bring our big ideas to life.
Learning from our clients: Taking a Technical Approach
Instead of switching gears as soon as something new hits the desk, or frantically putting out fires as is common in the Waterfall workflow, many software engineering teams have adopted an Agile workflow: a framework for making regular progress on ongoing projects at a set cadence.
The Agile workflow allows teams to set clearly defined goals to focus on during one sprint – a set amount of time. Between sprints, the team meets in a scrum to reflect on the previous sprint by marking goals as completed or failed, and set new goals for the upcoming sprint. This tactic is commonplace on technical teams, but as far as we knew, unheard of for office lunch programs. So, naturally, we gave it a try.
Sifted Scrums
We won’t lie, putting down our squirt guns and retiring from firefighting wasn’t easy. It took a lot of self-reflection about our to-do lists, a few weeks of asking ourselves, “Does this need to be done right this second?” and the willpower to say, “I’ll add it to my next sprint” instead of, “I’ll do that right now.” It also took the courage to lean into the discomfort of a failed goal, and the willingness to learn our true bandwidths – two things that posed a significant challenge for our team of high-achieving self-starters.
It didn’t take long for our team to see the benefits of an Agile workflow. We’re setting actionable goals, prioritizing our tasks, and continuously integrating our progress to reach milestones.
Scrum With Us
We’re not your typical catering company or office lunch provider. We refine our processes until they break, and then we automate them so our business can continue to scale. We analyze data to bring the right portions, every time. And we scrum. We’re the chef-made lunch program designed to be a partner to your team.