I’ve said this so often that we even wrote about it in Kanban In Action. It’s not a book about tearing off post-its, but it’s the printed kanban literature with the most geeky sidebar.
Post-its are such an integral part of agile that I’ve often joked the founding members probably own stocks in 3M.
I know embarrassing amounts of information about post-its; how they were accidentally invented, why the color is pale yellow, why the glue is where it is, how to open a pack with one hand, or a knee, etc.
But this simple little trick is something most people I tell it to have not reflected on.
Here’s the sidebar, used with permission of the author…
Yes, this might be the geekiest sidebar in history.
But it’s here to protect you from a plague that haunts many teams using stickies as work-item trackers. Picture the scene: you enter the office and see a board with a lot of stickies lying on the floor beneath it. You happily realize that it’s not your board; your stickies are securely attached, thanks to this sidebar. With a wry smile on your face, you visit the poor team whose board is missing its stickies to educate them in the noble art of “how to remove a sticky correctly.”
The trick is to be careful that the sticky part doesn’t curl. Slide your finger under the note up to the sticky area, and then lift it from right to left, slowly but firmly. That will make the sticky part straight and nice, thereby increasing the sticky area of the note.
Now you know and can pester all your friends with the proper way to remove a sticky. Not only is this a geeky party trick, but it will also, more seriously, save you problems with work items falling off your board.
Told you… Geeky.