Productive Meetings: Running Agile Meetings

Running Agile Meetings In every Agile project, there will be meetings for team members to attend. These meetings are well scheduled and structured  in a way that allow them to be as productive as possible. It is not enough for teams to attend and simply discuss about the project. There are lightweight activities in these meetings that when established properly will produce an outcome. The Scrum master is in charge of safeguarding these activities and making sure the team understands them  and their outcomes. The five Scrum activities are Standup, Refining, Planning, Improving, and Demoing.

Properly running agile meetings require that these activities remain small and short. Activities should contain the fewest amount of people and focus on achievable results. Daily Standup is the most frequent activity. It is a 15 minute activity where developers can communicate with each other about project work. This activity is solely for developers and everyone else should sit and listen. During the activity, developers are to answer three specific questions. What I accomplished yesterday? What I will accomplish today? Is there any roadblocks in the way? Usually the Scrum master will answer the last question.

The Standup activity is the only one performed everyday by the team. The Planning activity is for sprints. Teams will forecast their work for the next few weeks. The Planning takes about four hours at the beginning of each sprint. The product backlog is searched for the highest value items and the prioritized by the product owner. It is essential that the team understands the delivery. The refining activity deals with backlog refinement. The product owner will setup meetings to estimate any new backlog items. The product Demoing activity is the sprint review. This activity last for two hours and is used to show completed work to project stakeholders.

The last activity is self improvement which is also known as the team retrospective. This activity is limited to two hours and happens immediately after the demoing activity. This activity is the most important because it covers the lessons learned. A team that has failed to improve will usually make the same mistakes every sprint. The Scrum master must drive the team to commit on improving. Overall, agile meetings that utilize the five activities will keep the team lightweight and productive.

Work Cited

"Agile at Work: Driving Productive Agile Meetings" Lynda.com - from LinkedIn, https://www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Agile-Work-Driving-Productive-Agile-Meetings/175075-2.html Accessed 18 Nov. 2017.

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