What's ahead?
This simple question served many teams very well in their Sprint Plannings.
Long before the pandemic hit the world, I worked with distributed teams as a Scrum Master. Over the years I met wonderful people from all over the world: from the United States, Portugal, Poland, Germany, Romania, Slovenia, Moldova, South Africa, India, Spain and many other great nations. My personal horizon grew week by week, month by month.
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One thing was always valuable in facilitating virtual Sprint Plannings. This little question above: What´s ahead? Right at the beginning of the Sprint Planning, I asked this question to collect all information and constraints that defined our match field – our environment for the Sprint.
Everybody can/could share their aspects, and everything is transparent – no matter where you are located or your what your contract looks like. We are one team and we are transparent within our team!
If people hesitate to share and speak up, it is a massive indicator that psychological safety and trust are missing. Never force it – dig deep until you reach the root cause and solve it on the basis there. But that would lead to a whole different topic.
In the beginning, I used PowerPoint, shared my screen, put the statements on slides, and presented the ideas to make everything transparent for everyone. It worked well back in the day; with virtual whiteboards available in most companies, teams could collaborate in real time, and team members could participate. The picture below shows an example that was done with Mural. Other solutions such as Miro, Conceptboard or Collaboard will also serve you well.
When facilitating a Scrum Event, I like to use an image that reflects openness and departure for Sprint Planning. Therefore, I prepare the area on the board, and the team adds their post-its while speaking. The five to ten minutes are well spent because the team clearly understands and shares “what’s ahead” for the Sprint.
What provides value for your Sprint Plannings with distributed teams all over the world?
