How to avoid tedious Scrum Events
It is time to stop having pointless conversations. Let’s insist on more meaningful Scrum Events.
It is time to stop having pointless conversations. Let’s insist on more meaningful Scrum Events.
We all know what unproductive meetings feel like: your mind drifts from the tedium, and we fail to achieve anything meaningful. Why does it have to be like this?
I believe meetings should be more meaningful than dreadful, and that it is possible to make them terrific! But how?
Why may Scrum Events become tedious?
Before we jump to an alternative, let’s understand the problem in-depth! In my perception meetings are meaningless when:
There’s no preparation: people come with topics without being ready to discuss them.
The reason why the meeting happens is unclear: the motivation for the meeting is not clear or nonexistent.
There are no expected outcomes defined: the meeting finishes with no results. Sometimes, there are not even expected results determined.
The participants do not engage in the exchange: sometimes, members are not mindfully present in the meeting, which means there’s no engagement.
Random topics do not stop popping up: team members come with items no one agreed to discuss, which blocks the team from achieving the goals.
The meeting seems to be endless: many sessions become unproductive because they are too long. Also, I noticed, the longer the meeting, the less engaged the participants are.
“The longer the meeting, the less is accomplished.” Tim Cook, Apple CEO
How can we have more meaningful meetings?
It’s possible to have significant meetings once we have a framework. It can be simple; yet, it will require discipline and moving out of the comfort zone. Once we address the issues properly, we can leave the room feeling we made significant progress. What should we do then? The most extraordinary meetings I experienced have the following characteristics:
The purpose is clear to everyone.
The expected goals are clear from the beginning.
Everyone understands the method.
Everyone engages mindfully.
The members agree upon rules.
“Meetings are at the heart of an effective organization, and each meeting is an opportunity to clarify issues, set new directions, sharpen focus, create alignment, and move objectives forward.”
A framework to have meaningful meetings
There might be several ways to reach such characteristics. I will share the one I experienced and believe to be the best.
Agree upon rules on how the meeting flows: for example, for a product backlog refinement, only topics with clear business value.
Start with why: use the first minute to describe the motivation why everyone is spending their time.
Clarify the goals: after knowing the motivation, describe the goals, what should the participants achieve by the end of the session?
Explain the method: ensure everyone understands the way the meeting occurs. Does the team need to make a decision? Does the team need to define a concept? How is that going to happen? How long should it take?
Tune in: before jumping into the discussion, create a connection with the participants. At this moment, everyone shares how they feel and what they expect from the meeting. Transparency and openness are vital for this part.
Run the meeting: start the discussion once the members tuned in. Then help the members focus on achieving the goals through the method explained, and respecting the rules agreed by the team.
Insist on clear agreements: great sessions have agreements on why we do what until when by whom, the members should write down so that it’s clear for everyone.
Tune out: before leaving the meeting, everyone should understand the outcome, then everyone shares how they feel after the session, and express their emotions.
Borrowing an hour of somebody’s time is the same as borrowing a neighbor’s ladder. Ask politely, keep it only as long as you need it, return it quickly and say ‘thank you’.
What does a great meeting look like in real life?
Let’s imagine a scenario I often experienced — a product backlog refinement with the Scrum Team. The participants agree on the following rules; no smartphone allowed, no technical discussion, focus on the refinement. The meeting happens every Thursday at 10:00 a.m. The product backlog refinement would look like the following:
At 10:00 a.m; the product backlog starts, people greet each other. Then the Product Owner starts to talk.
David (Product Owner): The reason we are here is to increase our confidence and clarity so that we can get the product backlog items to a level we can work with. Today we will talk about the Member get Member topic, at the end of this session, we will have a joint agreement on how to move with this topic. To ensure that happens, we will need to refine the Epic and estimate its complexity. We have 90 minutes to do it.
Product Owner: Now, it’s time to tune in. Today I am feeling well because I am hopeful the crisis is getting better. Also, the topic Member get Member motivates me quite a lot, and I am excited about this talk.
Ivar (Scrum Master): I can connect to your saying, today it’s my day, I feel very excited. I woke up feeling well. I’m looking forward to a great outcome from today’s session.
Harold (Dev): Well, I am not so good today, my neighbor was too noisy during the night. I couldn’t sleep well. Anyway, I am interested in what David brings here today.
Björn (Dev): So, I’m also doing well, yesterday I finished one of my favorite series, Money Heist. The end was not as I expected, but I enjoyed it anyway. Today I’m a bit doubting we can make good progress, since this topic brings many possibilities, therefore, many discussions.
Agatha: I guess I am the last, today is an OK day for me, nothing special, nothing bad. I am not sure we are ready for all discussions. Let’s start, so David, what do you have for us?
David (Product Owner): OK. Now it’s 10:05 a.m. Let’s start with the goal. We want to increase our organic traffic to have a lower customer acquisition cost. Our NPS (Net Promoter Score) is currently 9,25. Therefore, we want to use this advantage in our favor. Considering our customers are willing to recommend our service to their friends, we should have a member get member feature.
Björn (Dev): Wait a moment! What is this NPS? Sorry, but I don’t know what it means. Could anyone explain it to me?
Agatha (Dev): I can answer it. Once our customers receive their delivery, we ask the question: “On a scale of 0–10, how likely are you to recommend our service to a friend?”. A score higher than 8.0 means our customers are willing to recommend us to their friends. Did I answer your question?
Björn (Dev): Yes. Now I got it. Thanks.
David (Product Owner): We want to validate the following hypothesis: customers are willing to recommend us to their friends in exchange for €15,00 for each activated recommendation. How could we prove this?
Harold (Dev): that’s a fantastic idea! I think we could build a micro-service for that. Also, we may need to refactor our voucher code to support this feature. I see some tech…
Ivar didn’t let Harold finish his speech, he interrupted.
Ivar (Scrum Master): I need to interrupt you, sorry. It seems we are jumping into the solution. Maybe we should refine the topic first, then estimate the complexity. But, I remember we all agreed to leave technical discussions out of the backlog refinement session.
Harold (Dev): Sorry. My bad. I was excited about the topic, and I couldn’t hold myself from building the solution in my mind. Let’s continue.
Agatha (Dev): I have a question about the potential. David, could you share with us the expected business value? I’m curious to understand it better.
David (Product Owner): Let me be honest with you, I don’t have the specific numbers now, but I can share some details. We have a total of 2.3 million active customers, considering they are willing to recommend us, we can grow our customers’ base significantly. However, how significantly I cannot tell me. I will take this with me.
At this moment, David wrote on the whiteboard, “David will calculate the expected business value of the Member get Member feature until Thursday next week. Then, present to the team to provide a clear understanding of the potential.”
The Scrum Team refines the product backlog items to a workable level. Some conflicts happened due to different opinions, but the team found a way to move forward. Now they need to estimate the feature. It’s 10:55.
David (Product Owner): Now we have the product backlog items refined, I think we should estimate them. Let’s start with the first one. As a Customer, I want to be able to recommend the Food Delivery App to my friends so that they can also enjoy the service. Let’s estimate?
Everyone said yes. Then the team estimated. Harold gave 8, Björn 20, and Agatha 13. So now the Harold and Björn need to explain their estimation.
Harold (Dev): I guess we have many parts done. I compared this with the Product Recommendation feature. For me, it is the same complexity.
Björn (Dev): I was in between 13 and 20. I see Member get Member more complex than Product Recommendation because it involves more interactions.
Ivar (Scrum Master): Let’s go to a second round. 3,2,1, go.
At this time, everyone estimated as 13. Then, The Dev Team estimated all the remaining product backlog items. The team achieved the goal even before time. The session was about to finish, and it was 11:11 a.m. It was the moment to tune out.
David (Product Owner): I’m impressed by the progress we achieved today, I leave the room confident we can work on the Member get Member from the next Sprint.
Agatha (Dev): I’m feeling excited to work on the Member get Member, I believe it can be a game-changer once we do it correctly.
Björn (Dev): I came here without knowing what NPS means, a little embarrassing. But now I leave the room with more knowledge, and I am happy about it.
Harold (Dev): I’m so motivated about this new feature, I can’t wait until we can work on it. But now I need to focus on the current Sprint. We still have some essential parts to finish.
Ivar (Scrum Master): I’m proud of our team; every Sprint, we become a better version of ourselves. Congratulations to everyone!
That’s how a productive product backlog refinement should be. Clear, engaging, and meaningful.
Wrap-up
Don’t accept pointless Scrum events. You can have meaningful and useful meetings once:
Insist on clear rules on how to run the sessions.
Start with the motivation, goals, and method.
The participants engage by sharing their feelings and expectations.
The participants make clear agreements about why we do what until when by whom.
Finish with the participants sharing their feelings about the meeting.
Do you want to write for Serious Scrum or seriously discuss Scrum?