Last Updated on March 1, 2018 by Team Multiverse
Welcome to the use of scrum meetings, the most efficient 15 minutes of your day! If you and your team lack communication or clarity, you have come to the right place. If you have recently on-boarded more team members and have trouble keeping up with their tasks, you’re also in the right place! If you’re just seeking more efficient workflows, transparency, and need to get the absolute most out of your time, well… again, you’re in the right place!
Here I will explain to you why you should be using scrum meetings to accelerate your website development (or virtually any other) projects!
What is Scrum?!
Lots of people think scrum is an acronym. Nope, it’s just an ugly word. Scrum is actually a rugby term for when a team quickly packs together and work out a plan to get the ball from one end of the field to the other. That’s basically it. It’s a quick “Hey, this is what I’m going to do – what about you, Joe?” and 5 minutes later, all members of the team are on the same page, so they break and destroy the other team. Easy peasy, right?
The idea behind this communication is quick, relevant information that benefits all players on the team. Things like unnecessary rambling or introduction of new ideas is not allowed, nor is there time for it. The game needs to start! People in the stands don’t want to watch a bunch of sweaty rugby champs talk in circles for half an hour. Boooooring. The point is to get in, explain your plan on attack, make sure everyone is on the same page or if any help is needed, and break! See? Quick and effective communication that ultimately leads to winning!
How can I incorporate scrum meetings?
This simple and effective way of communicating is not only ideal for rugby teams, but also development teams! Getting started is quite simple. Below is a simple breakdown that should explain everything pretty thoroughly:
Two Week Sprints
To put it simply, this is the meeting where you guys as a team will agree on every task that should be completed, and every goal that should be met. Examples include website goals, internal company goals, etc… You know, the long term stuff!
The Daily 15 Minute Meeting
The daily 15 minute meeting, or as we know it now as the scrum meeting, should be done at the beginning of the day first thing. Rugby players don’t start playing until they discuss, so neither should you! If you’re a bit unsure of how to quickly communicate your daily goals, try something like this which is also known as the three question agenda:
- Quickly state what you completed since last meeting
- Explain what today’s goals are
- Any blocks you may have (other team member’s tasks that should be completed before yours can be worked on or completed) which would be addressed here.
An example of what you could say would be:
“Hi everyone! Yesterday I completed goals A, B, and C successfully. Today I will be working on completing D, E, and F. Johnny, you’re my block for 100% completing task D for today because I’m waiting for {insert reason here}. Let me know if I can lend a hand!”
Once you’re done, it’s the next team member’s turn to do the same thing. This continues until every team member has made their announcement. Again, the goal here is to be 100% transparent with each other and if any team member is having trouble meeting their goals, it will be evident here. This is when everyone can reach out to lend a hand to keep that team member on track.
Bi-Weekly Meetings
This is essentially the longer meeting recap the previous two weeks, celebrate your successes, and discuss the next two week sprint. Pretty simple right?
What are some scrum meeting best practices?
- Dont sit. Yeah, avoid doing that. Standing is key since nobody is getting comfortable. This encourages quick and to the point scrum announcements per team member.
- Practice the three question agenda. Remember that from above? It’s actually part of the agile workflow methodology. State your completed tasks from last meeting, what you are working on today, and if there are any blocks from your other team members.
- This is a collaborative effort. This isn’t the place for a one-on-one discussion with the scrum master. That is a waste of time and web development productivity. This meeting is meant to discuss things only relevant to your team members. The one-on-one stuff can be had at a different time.
- Scrum meetings should be built around the team. So does everyone arrive at the office at the same time? If so, have the meeting first thing in the morning. Does everyone show up at different times? Have the meeting in the afternoon when everyone is present. There is no right or wrong way to do this. Every team is different. Finding that consistency is key and sticking with it. If that doesn’t happen, procrastination for the meeting could get the best of you and your team.
Avoid these common scrum meeting mistakes!
- Waiting for people to show up. No matter what, stick to the schedule scrum meeting time. If you have team members who are inconsistent in this department, you probably have some bigger problems to deal with.
- Introducing new ideas! This is one big mistake that many teams do when they first incorporate the scrum meeting. Remember, the scrum meeting is not a meeting for planning. That is what your two week sprint meeting is for! Doing this will divert attention away from the three question agenda. Don’t make this mistake!
- Rambling. Remember, everything said should be valuable to everyone in the room. If rambling is still a problem, its’ probably a good idea to incorporate a strict time limit for each speaker.
- Avoiding all other team communication. This is also a common issue. Not communicating throughout the day just because you had a scrum meeting earlier is bad news. That should not be the only communication had between all team members. If you wait around to bring up an issue for next meeting, this slows progress and makes the scrum meeting itself inefficient.
A recap on how to use scrum meetings!
Well, we went over quite a bit here, but the idea behind the scrum meeting is quite simple. It’s all about very clear communication. Creating efficient two week sprints and discussing tasks on a daily basis will help accelerate your team, your team’s projects, and make better use of your time. Any questions on how to incorporate this ideology for your team? Comment below and let us help!
