Every time we have an internal meeting at Smallcode, we sit at the table and a participant says, “Shall we check in?”

What is Check-In? It’s basically a protocol for expressing how you feel, at that moment, to the rest of the meeting participants.

Where does it originate? I learned about it at a company where I worked back in 2011. One of my technical leaders is a huge fan of the agile methodology and shared a lot of knowledge with us. She recommended we read the book “The Core: Software for Your Head” (a great book, by the way!), and we put many of its elements into practice daily. 

If you want more information on what Check-In is like: https://liveingreatness.com/core-protocols/check-in/

For many, it’s difficult to use just four states, but the idea is to combine them (see link!) to represent how you feel. It’s very common to fall into the trap of adding modifiers before each state. The typical one: I’m VERY happy with the overall progress of the project.

Another case is that people are responsible for changing the names of statuses, such as “Happy” for “Happy.” It’s not the same; that’s the way protocol works!

In some companies, people used it as a form of catharsis. They spent 10 minutes expressing why they were angry, going back months, recounting project problems until they reached the present. And of course, the rest of the members were already exhausted from listening and lacked focus for the meeting.

Something common for a team that’s just starting to implement it is to forget to say, “I’m here, and I’m here to contribute to this meeting!” In the book, they call it “Intellectual Presence.” You’ve probably noticed in many meetings that there are people who claim to be attentive but spend their time looking at their cell phones and/or laptops. This goes hand in hand with the idea that if we attend a meeting, it’s because we’re interested and want to contribute to meeting its objective.

It often happens that when a meeting member is checking in, a participant interrupts or makes a comment. Even if the person checking in isn’t bothered, it’s important that when someone speaks, the rest of the participants just listen. This helps both the person speaking and the person listening. It helps us understand how the other person is feeling, how they are at that moment, and gives meaning to the words being conveyed.