Meeting Techniques

The Scrum framework prescribes four specific meetings - Sprint Planning, the Daily Scrum, Sprint Review and Retrospective and Product Backlog Refinement. No other meetings are required by Scrum, unless the Scrum Team decides additional meetings are crucial to deliver the potentially shippable increment. If the meeting is not considered crucial by the Scrum Team, it should be approached with a great deal of skepticism.

Have a Clear Purpose

Even short meetings (such as daily stand-ups or sprint reviews/retrospectives) can go off the proverbial rails when they lack a clear purpose or objective, warned certified Scrum trainer and Agile coach Mitch Lacey, author of “The Scrum Field Guide: Agile Advice for Your First Year and Beyond.”

“The key is to understand why you are having the meeting,” Lacey explained. The facilitator should state the intent and purpose of the meeting at the outset, and structure the agenda accordingly.

For instance, since the goal of a standup is to plan for the next 24 hours, not to review yesterday’s work, he recommends that facilitators focus daily Scrum questions around progress rather than tasks. For example:

• What have you accomplished since the last meeting?

• What do you plan to accomplish by the next meeting?

• What could get in your way?

“I like to close each meeting by asking a fourth question,” Lacey said. “’On a scale from one to 10, how confident are you in your ability to achieve the goal of the sprint?’”

Posing this “litmus test” question can galvanize the team around its goals and draw out individuals who seem reluctant to voice issues or concerns, he added. If obstacles are not brought up in a timely manner, the Scrum Master can’t help remove them.

Don’t Get Lost in the Weeds

To keep meetings fast-paced and succinct, get rid of the chairs, advised Martin Wickman, an Agile coach focused on development and author of “Running Effective Scrum Meetings: Boost Your Team’s Productivity with Agile Retrospective Meetings.”

“Ask the team to come up with ground rules, such as cell phones and laptops must be powered off, team members need to arrive on time and not interrupt the speaker,” Wickman added. To build trust and self-reliance, the Scrum Master should then ask the team’s permission to point out the guidelines if violations occur.

He also recommends creating a “parking lot” on a whiteboard, where the facilitator can post unrelated topics or issues that require further analysis. Use sidebars for more detailed discussions of complex problems, such as product backlog issues.

To prevent anchoring bias in decision-making during sprint planning sessions, facilitators need to coach dominating team members to step back and be more inclusive. Or they should make an effort to call on more timid contributors first, in order to keep rock star developers from pushing their ideas at the expense of others.

“Don’t fall into the trap of relying on one or two key contributors,” Wickman said. “Encourage team members to take the initiative and volunteer for assignments and tasks during meetings.”

Mistakes to Avoid

Conducting meetings via phone or e-mail: Create “esprit de corps” and encourage self-reliance by meeting in-person (or via video conference for distributed teams).

Taking formal notes: Don’t waste time taking notes or implementing a complicated collaboration tool. Remember, the Agile Manifesto emphasizes people and interactions over processes and tools. Jot down ideas on sticky notes and keep moving.

Letting meetings get stale: To keep sprint retrospectives from becoming dull and routine, analyze the data after a sprint and let the team select one or two important issues to discuss and improve.

SAMPLE MEETING PURPOSE AND AGENDAS

From Jean Tabaka’s 2007 book, Collaboration Explained.

Anatomy of a Meeting

FIVE LEVELS OF INVOLVEMENT

1. Presenting and Reporting: a one-way activity, where the group members merely sit and listen.

2. Comments and Questions: group members are participants in the meeting, but on a limited basis.

3. Extensive Discussion: demands sustained concentration and effort by each member of the group.

4. Convergence and Alignment: participants are asked to think from each other’s points-of-view and tolerate the tensions that may arise during periods of misunderstanding.

5. Ownership and Commitment: everything described in Convergence and Alignment, plus the added requirement that participants persevere unto they produce a solution that gains the enthusiastic endorsement from all members.

SEVEN TYPES OF MEETINGS

1. Share Information: the purpose is make an announcement, deliver a report or provide a presentation to the group.

2. Obtain Input: the meeting planner seeks feedback and\or suggestions from the group, but does not want the group to make decisions.

3. Advance the Thinking: the meeting planner wants to group to make progress on a topic or move their views on the topic to the next step.

4. Make Decisions: the purpose is for the group to address a simple, or complex, issue and bring it to closure.

5. Improve Communication: the members of a group meet to strength their working relationships by sharing feelings and\or dealing with interpersonal tension.

6. Build Capacity: scheduled training time to focus on developing and improving the skills of the group.

7. Build Community: the members of the group meet to promote camaraderie, strengthen the bonds among people who work together and generally boostmoral.

Reference Material

• https://lookforwardconsulting.com/2013/03/15/no-more-bad-meetings

• https://insights.dice.com/2018/08/24/best-practices-running-productive-agile-scrum-meetings

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