A quiet moment before the sprint

We were about to kick off a new sprint, and the air felt thick with unspoken tasks. I asked who wanted to go first in tomorrow's standup, and the silence stretched out just a little too long. Everyone was already mentally sorting through their own workload, and volunteering felt like adding one more thing to the list.

The silence after the question

It wasn't that people were disengaged. You could see the focus in their eyes, the quiet typing as they reviewed their tickets. The pause was just long enough to become awkward, a small pocket of tension in an otherwise smooth planning session. I realized the ask, however small, was landing as another decision on top of everything else.We needed a way to make this one tiny part of the day feel fair and automatic. Something that removed the slight pressure of choice first thing in the morning. The goal wasn't to manage, but to facilitate a smoother start for everyone.

Spinning the wheel for tomorrow

I put together a simple wheel with everyone's name on it. The next day, instead of asking, I just shared my screen and gave it a spin. There was a soft chuckle when it landed, a collective release of that minor tension. The person it pointed to just nodded, took a breath, and started sharing their update.It became a tiny ritual. The spin of the wheel marked the official start of our sync, a neutral transition into the workday. It distributed the 'burden' of going first evenly across the team, without anyone having to think about it. The silence was gone, replaced by a simple, shared understanding.

What it did for the team

It felt less like an assignment and more like a game of chance, which kept the mood light. Over time, it just became how we started, one less thing for any of us to carry.