Meetings and Facilitation

🎯 Agile Teams: Meetings and Facilitation

The Team Campfire Story

Imagine your team is on a camping trip. Every evening, you gather around a campfire. You share stories about the day. What went well? What was scary? What should you do differently tomorrow?

Agile meetings are just like campfires. They help teams talk, learn, and get better together.

🔄 Retrospective Purpose

What Is a Retrospective?

A retrospective is a special meeting at the end of each sprint. The team looks back and asks:

• What went well? 🎉
• What didn’t go well? 😕
• What can we improve? 🚀

Simple Analogy: After a soccer game, the team watches the replay. They see good passes and missed goals. Then they practice what needs work.

Why Do We Do This?

Teams that never look back keep making the same mistakes. Retrospectives help you:

• Celebrate wins (everyone loves a high-five!)
• Fix problems before they grow
• Build trust by talking openly

Example: “Last sprint, we missed a deadline because we started testing too late. Next time, we’ll test earlier.”

graph TD
    A["Sprint Ends"] --> B["Team Gathers"]
    B --> C["What Went Well?"]
    B --> D["What Went Wrong?"]
    B --> E["What to Improve?"]
    C --> F["Celebrate!"]
    D --> G["Learn"]
    E --> H["Action Items"]

🛠️ Retrospective Techniques

There are many ways to run a retrospective. Here are the favorites:

1. Start-Stop-Continue

Three simple buckets:

Example:

• Start: Daily 10-min standups
• Stop: Late-night code pushes
• Continue: Pair programming on hard bugs

2. Mad-Sad-Glad

Team members share emotions:

• 😡 Mad: What frustrated you?
• 😢 Sad: What disappointed you?
• 😊 Glad: What made you happy?

Example: Glad: “Our deploy went perfectly!” Mad: “Too many last-minute changes.”

3. Sailboat Retrospective

Picture a boat on water:

• ⛵ Wind = What pushes us forward?
• ⚓ Anchor = What holds us back?
• 🪨 Rocks = What risks are ahead?
• 🏝️ Island = What’s our goal?

4. 4 Ls

• Liked: What did you enjoy?
• Learned: What did you discover?
• Lacked: What was missing?
• Longed for: What do you wish you had?

✅ Action Items Follow-Up

What Are Action Items?

Action items are promises the team makes during the retrospective.

Bad Example: “We should communicate better.” Good Example: “Sarah will set up a Slack channel for blockers by Monday.”

The Golden Rule: WHO + WHAT + WHEN

Every action item needs:

1. Who is responsible?
2. What exactly will they do?
3. When is it due?

How to Track Action Items

• Write them on a shared board
• Review them at the NEXT retrospective
• Celebrate completed ones! 🎉

Example Tracking:

🔍 Root Cause Analysis

Why Ask “Why” Five Times?

When something goes wrong, don’t just fix the surface problem. Dig deeper!

The 5 Whys Technique:

Problem: The website crashed.

1. Why? The server ran out of memory.
2. Why? Too many users logged in at once.
3. Why? We didn’t expect the traffic spike.
4. Why? We didn’t monitor social media for mentions.
5. Why? We have no social media monitoring process.

Root Cause: Missing social media monitoring. Fix: Set up alerts for brand mentions.

Fishbone Diagram (Ishikawa)

Another way to find root causes. Draw a fish skeleton:

• Head = The problem
• Bones = Categories (People, Process, Tools, Environment)
• Smaller bones = Specific causes

graph TD
    Problem["Website Crash"] --> People
    Problem --> Process
    Problem --> Tools
    Problem --> Environment
    People --> A["Training gaps"]
    Process --> B["No monitoring"]
    Tools --> C["Old server"]
    Environment --> D["Traffic spike"]

🎤 Facilitation Techniques

What Is a Facilitator?

A facilitator is like a referee in a game. They don’t play. They make sure everyone plays fair and has fun.

Key Techniques

1. Timeboxing Set a timer. When it rings, move on. Example: “We have 5 minutes to brainstorm. Go!”

2. Round Robin Everyone speaks in order. No one is skipped. Example: Go around the circle. Each person shares one idea.

3. Silent Brainstorming Write ideas on sticky notes BEFORE discussing. Why? Shy people share too! Loud people don’t dominate.

4. Dot Voting Everyone gets 3 dots. Put dots on your favorite ideas. The most-dotted ideas win!

5. Parking Lot Off-topic ideas go to a “parking lot” list. “Great idea, but let’s park it for now.”

💪 Facilitation Skills

The 5 Superpowers of Great Facilitators

1. Active Listening Look at the speaker. Nod. Repeat back what you heard. “So you’re saying the tests take too long?”

2. Neutrality Don’t take sides. Don’t share your opinion. Your job is to help the team decide, not decide for them.

3. Time Management Keep one eye on the clock. Gently move things along. “We have 2 minutes left. Let’s wrap up this topic.”

4. Conflict Management When people disagree, stay calm. Redirect to solutions. “I hear both sides. What can we try that addresses both?”

5. Encouraging Quiet Voices Some people wait to be asked. “Alex, we haven’t heard from you. Any thoughts?”

📅 Effective Agile Meetings

The Big Four Agile Meetings

Tips for Each Meeting

Daily Standup

• Stand up (it keeps it short!)
• Answer three questions:
  • What did I do yesterday?
  • What will I do today?
  • Any blockers?
• Example: “Yesterday I finished the login page. Today I’ll start the dashboard. No blockers.”

Sprint Planning

• Pick items from the backlog
• Break them into tasks
• Estimate effort
• Example: “We’ll take the top 5 user stories. Let’s break ‘Add Cart’ into 4 tasks.”

Sprint Review

• Show working software
• Get feedback from stakeholders
• Example: “Here’s the new checkout flow. Click here to pay. What do you think?”

Retrospective

• Already covered above! Look back, learn, improve.

graph TD
    A["Sprint Start"] --> B["Sprint Planning"]
    B --> C["Daily Standups"]
    C --> D["Work Gets Done"]
    D --> E["Sprint Review"]
    E --> F["Retrospective"]
    F --> A

📊 Information Radiators

What Is an Information Radiator?

An information radiator is a big, visible display that shows the team’s status. Anyone walking by can see it.

Simple Analogy: Think of a scoreboard at a sports game. You don’t need to ask who’s winning. Just look up!

Types of Information Radiators

1. Kanban Board Columns: To Do | In Progress | Done Cards move left to right as work progresses.

2. Sprint Burndown Chart Shows how much work is left. The line should go down over time.

3. Build Status Monitor Big green light = Build passed ✅ Big red light = Build failed ❌

4. Team Calendar Shows who’s on vacation, meetings, deadlines.

5. Metrics Dashboard Displays velocity, defect count, customer satisfaction.

Why They Work

• Transparency: Everyone sees the same truth
• Accountability: Problems are visible
• Focus: The team knows what matters
• Communication: Less “status update” meetings needed

Example: The team puts a big TV on the wall showing the sprint burndown. Every morning, everyone sees: “We have 20 points left with 3 days to go. Let’s hustle!”

🏆 Putting It All Together

Agile meetings are NOT just meetings. They are rituals that build strong teams.

Remember:

• 🔄 Retrospectives help you learn and improve
• ✅ Action items turn talk into results
• 🔍 Root cause analysis fixes real problems
• 🎤 Facilitation keeps meetings productive
• 📅 Effective meetings respect everyone’s time
• 📊 Information radiators keep everyone informed

You now have the tools to make your team’s campfire the best part of every sprint! 🔥

“The only thing worse than not having a retrospective is having one and not acting on what you learned.”

Now go facilitate some amazing meetings! 🚀