Developing People and Teams [P1]: Facilitation - Facilitation techniques for the Daily Scrum

Question 1

Purpose of Daily Scrum?

Answer 1

Developers inspect progress toward the Sprint Goal. Output of the Daily Scrum is a plan for the next working day

Question 2

What is the facilitator’s focus during the Daily Scrum?

Answer 2

Enable an atmosphere where the team focuses on delivering quality, commitment (Sprint Goal) and addressing impediments. Avoid status updates. Observe and question when needed. Ensure team focus on the Sprint Goal.

Question 3

What are the three techniques for facilitating the Daily Scrum?

Answer 3

(1) three questions: what did I do since last Daily Scrum? What will I do today? Impediments from prevent me from achieving sprint goal

(2) Walking the board/walking the wall
– - to do, in progress and done columns - visualise work left to do and blocked work.
– targets the work rather than individuals.

(3) Using flow metrics
— No. WIP
— Work item age
— Aging work in progress chart
— Walking the board but with metrics for work items

Question 4

What are the pitfalls and ways to overcome these for the ‘three questions’ Daily Scrum facilitation technique?

Answer 4

• Pitfalls
  
  • hard to timebox
  • become a status update - everyone waiting their turn and not collaborating
  • loosing focus on collaboration toward sprint goal
• How to overcome?
  
  • Ask open ended question like
    
    • What is the progress toward the sprint goal
    • What is the next step for us to move toward the sprint goal
    • What impediements do we face and how can we approach these?
    • What or who do we need to help us make this decision?

Question 5

What are the pitfalls and ways to overcome these for the ‘Walking the board/walking the wall’ Daily Scrum facilitation technique?

Answer 5

• Challenges
  
  • team may forget about sprint goal
• Tips
  
  • Ask: how are we doing toward our sprint goal
  • Visible sprint goal

Question 6

What are the pitfalls and ways to overcome these for the ‘Using flow metrics’ Daily Scrum facilitation technique?

Answer 6

• Problems
  
  • forget sprint goal
  • can cause distraction from questioning the value of the work
• Tips
  
  • Is this work still valuable?
  • How are we doing toward meeting the sprint goal?

Question 7

What are the six areas where teams struggle the most?

Answer 7

1. Create better Sprint Goals & Sprint Backlogs;
2. Break down Product Backlog Items;
3. Discovery & Action Dialogue (creative thinking);
4. Gently challenge beliefs and encourage double-loop learning;
5. Keep the team focused during the Sprint;
6. Help teams switch from a technical to a functional perspective

Question 8

Powerful questions for sprint planning

Answer 8

• “What would need to happen while working on this Sprint Goal, that would be cause for celebration?”
• “If we just canceled the next Sprint and went on vacation, what would be inevitably lost or become much harder later?”
• “When we achieve this Sprint Goal, what has clearly changed or improved from the perspective of our stakeholders?”

Question 9

Powerful questions for daily scrum

Answer 9

• “What is the biggest bottleneck in our current work together? What can we do today towards removing it?”
• “What is keeping us from completing this item? Where do we need help?”
• “Instead of picking up something new, where can you help others get work done that is already in progress?”

Question 10

Powerful questions for sprint review

Answer 10

explore root cause of problem

• “How do you know when this problem is present?”
• “How do you contribute effectively to solving the problem?”
• “Do you know anybody who is able to frequently solve this problem and overcome barriers? What behaviors or practices made their success possible?”

Question 11

Powerful questions for sprint retro

Answer 11

⇒ For example challenge possible falls beliefs that block the growth of the team

• “What happens when this belief turns out to be wrong?”
• “Where do you see this belief confirmed?”
• “What would need to happen for you to let go of this belief?”

Question 12

Powerful questions for backlog refinement

Answer 12

⇒ “Break down Product Backlog Items”

• “Which of the acceptance criteria for this item can we get away with by implementing later?”
• “What is the smallest and simplest possible way to implement this item?”
• “If we had to implement this item in only one day, what would we focus on making sure is there? What could be done later?”

⇒ “Help teams switch from a technical to a functional perspective”

• “How would sales explain the benefits of this to a new user or customer?”
• “When we implement this item, which user(s) benefits from it the most?”
• “If we don’t implement this item, what likely complaints can we expect from our users in the future?”

Question 13

How to run conversation cafe? [for making sense of a challenge team is facing]

Answer 13

1. Prepare breakouts for groups of four or five people.
2. (2 min) Share the Powerful Question for Conversation Café and give everyone some time to individually and silently reflect on their experiences with the topic.
3. (2 min) Provide a rough overview of the rounds. Each group goes through four rounds, two first rounds with a talking object, the third one as an open conversation, and a final round to share personal insights again.
4. (2 min) Explain that, once everyone is in their breakouts, they will self-manage the rounds. Use the chat to broadcast which round they should be in. Ask for each group to pick a host. The host is a full participant whose role is to keep the timeboxes and to gently intervene when a participant fails to observe the timebox or is talking on and on.
5. (5 min) In the first round, everyone shares their personal thoughts and experience with regard to the selected question. Emphasize that this round is not a conversation.
6. (5 min) In the second round, everyone shares thoughts and feelings after having listened to everybody. Emphasize that this round is not a conversation.
7. (8 min) The thirds round is an open and lively conversation.
8. (5 min) In the fourth round, everyone shares their takeaways from the conversation. People have the option to pass. Emphasize that this round is, again, not a conversation.
9. (5 min) Once everyone is back in the main channel, briefly discuss the patterns that emerged with the entire group.

Question 14

How to run 1-2-4-ALL

Answer 14

1. (1 min) Ask people to get their thinking started about the selected Powerful Question. Individually, and in silence.
2. (2 min) Invite people into pairs and move them into breakouts. There, they quickly share their ideas and build on them.
3. (4 min) Invite people into groups of four, preferably by keeping the pairs together and move them into new breakouts. Ask the groups to share their ideas and build on them.
4. (5 min) Together, collect all the participants on a shared workspace and remove duplicates as needed.

Question 15

How to run impromptu networking

Answer 15

1. (3 min) Share the Powerful Question and give everyone time for individual thinking. Simultaneously, prepare the breakouts for the pairs.
2. (3 min) Ask participants to share their thoughts about the question. Let them be mindful of each other and share the responsibility for the timebox.
3. (3 min) Reshuffle the configuration of the breakouts and ask the new pairs to continue sharing their thoughts.
4. (3 min) In the third and final round, ask the newly formed pairs to share their thoughts but to also pay attention to patterns (e.g. differences and similarities) between the conversations.
5. (5 min) Once everyone is back in the main channel, briefly discuss the patterns that emerged with the entire group.

Question 16

How to run Wise Crowds [for large groups]

Answer 16

1. (2 min) Ask a team member or stakeholder to present his/her challenge and request for help. Use the Powerful Questions as inspiration. Figuring out an answer to a certain question can be the input for Wise Crowds.
2. (2 min) The team members (acting as consultants) ask open, clarifying questions to better understand the challenge.
3. The client turns off the webcam and audio and gets ready to take notes.
4. (8 min) The consultants ask questions and offer advice, and recommendations, working as a team, while the client only listens.
5. (2 min) The client turns on the webcam and audio again and provides feedback to the consultants: what was useful and what he or she takes away.

Question 17

Ways to promote focus on sprint goal

Answer 17

(1) Recast the questions to focus on a consumer/producer conversation like so:

• What did you complete yesterday that we can consume?
• What will you complete today that we need to consume or coordinate?
• Is there anything out of your control that will prevent you from reaching your objective for the day?

(2) Recast the questions to focus on the sprint goal like so:

• What did you do yesterday to contribute to the sprint goal?
• What will you do today to contribute to the sprint goal?
• Is there anything out of your control that will prevent you from contributing to the sprint goal?

(3) Abandon the questions and focus on 3 questions and focus explicitly on coordinating like so:

• In order to make progress toward the sprint goal, what do we need to coordinate today (e.g. technology, people, process)? Make sure this question says “what do we need” as opposed to “do we need”. The former infers something needs to be coordinated.

(4) Focus on the tasks and PBIs that are in progress. Rather than a round robin by person, the Daily Scrum becomes round robin by PBI:

• For PBI xyz, do we need to coordinate anything for today’s progress?

Question 18

Tip for if the team goinginto too much detail during the Daily Scrum?

Answer 18

Try introducing ELMO (Enough, Let’s Move On). Participants either say “Elmo” or hold up an Elmo doll to encourage the group to suspend current discussion and move to the next topic.