Yes, aggregating mood for a whole project then looking back afterwards and saying "yep, that was the data" would be pretty useless for getting that product shipped. But, that's not what's being claimed. The claim is that the smiley calendar is a tool that helps everyone spot some problems and trends. This is in addition to having a few managers keep in-practice private (and probably mental) logs of everyone's mood over hundreds of face-to-face check-ins.
The value I see in this is that people sometimes totally do fake their mood face to face for a variety of reasons. People sometimes will also totally fake being overly happy on a board too. It's just one more opportunity for people to bring problems to the surface. It'll work better for some people than others, better for some teams than others. But, when it works it would be tremendously valuable.
The value I see in this is that people sometimes totally do fake their mood face to face for a variety of reasons. People sometimes will also totally fake being overly happy on a board too. It's just one more opportunity for people to bring problems to the surface. It'll work better for some people than others, better for some teams than others. But, when it works it would be tremendously valuable.