“In times of transition and change, work rituals can make the difference between an overwhelmed, disheartened team and one that is vibrantly engaged and motivated.”
— Marilyn Zakhour & Constance Noonan Hadley, Harvard Business Review
In a recent HBR article, Zakhour and Hadley explore how team rituals foster commitment, psychological safety, and job satisfaction. Their three-year study across 60 countries found that teams with frequent, meaningful rituals reported:
-
23% higher commitment to team purpose
-
20% greater psychological safety
-
28% stronger interpersonal knowledge
-
22% higher job satisfaction
At Catapult Labs, we see clear parallels with Agile team rituals like retrospectives, sprint planning, and stand-ups. These ceremonies aren’t just meetings — they’re rituals that provide rhythm, reflection, and resilience for teams navigating constant change.
Why Rituals Matter in Agile
The HBR authors define rituals as “collective activities that members of a team engage in regularly and to which they attribute meaning.” That definition could easily describe an Agile retrospective or daily stand-up.
Just like the advertising agency in their field study, Agile teams thrive when rituals are designed with intent and practiced with discipline. Without them, teams risk falling into “underproductive loops” — something we’ve seen in our work with distributed organizations.
Five Lessons for Agile Teams
The article highlights five measures for sustaining rituals, which map directly to Agile practices:
-
Leading with faith → Agile leaders must champion ceremonies even when teams are skeptical. A well-run retro or OKR review can change culture — but only if leaders model the commitment.
-
Imbuing rituals with meaning → Rituals should tie back to the team’s why. In Agile, retrospectives work best when linked to both delivery outcomes and team health. (See our post on fixing the Agile feedback loop).
-
Being religious about participation → Ceremonies are core work, not extras. Just like the study’s monthly check-ins, retros must be on the calendar and treated as non-negotiable.
-
Adapting the practice → Teams evolve. Maybe weekly retros become bi-weekly, or stand-ups shift format. Rituals need to adjust without losing their essence.
-
Spreading the word → Successful ceremonies spread across teams. We’ve seen this in enterprises adopting Agile Retrospectives for Jira, where once one team closes the feedback loop, others follow suit.
Rituals as DevEx Multipliers
For us, the link is clear: rituals = Developer Experience multipliers. When ceremonies are meaningful, predictable, and actionable, they reduce friction, increase trust, and keep teams aligned.
This is why we’ve invested in apps that make rituals more effective inside Atlassian tools:
-
Agile Retrospectives for Jira → make retros actionable by turning feedback into Jira issues.
-
Scrum Poker for Jira & Confluence → keep estimation light but consistent, reinforcing the sprint planning ritual.
-
GitLinker for Jira → reduce ceremony fatigue by making dev-to-Jira linkage effortless.
For a broader view, see our DevEx Solutions page, where we explore how closing the DevEx Deficit turns ceremonies into outcomes.
Conclusion
As Zakhour and Hadley write:
“When done right, team rituals provide certainty, connection, and space for employees to engage with each other and connect to the purpose of their work.”
We couldn’t agree more. In Agile, ceremonies are the rituals that transform process into culture. The question isn’t whether to run them — it’s how to make them meaningful.
Further reading: