Developing People and Teams [P1]: Facilitation - Facilitation techniques for sprint review Flashcards
What key point does the Scrum Guide make for the sprint review?
intended to elicit feedback and foster collaboration
Event purpose of sprint review
Inspect the Increment, through feedback and adaptation of the Product Backlog if needed
Facilitator focus of sprint review
Enable an engaging, energetic and participative environment. Encourage listening vs. reacting. Empathize, listen actively and build synergy between the Scrum Team, sponsors and stakeholders.
What are common things that shouldn’t happen in a sprint review and what should be the focus instead?
- One way convo
- just focus on the demo
⇒ instead —> 1 inspect outcome, 2 look for future opps and adaptions
How should a sprint review be run?
- PO invites the right stakeholders - e.g. customers who are involved in the product development process
- Stakeholders can vary between sprints, depending on sprint goal
- Indicate to stakeholders what work will be inspected so it can be determined if their participation has value
- Remind everyone that it is not limited to demo or presentation
- Team creates multiple sprint feature stations before sprint review - stations with markers and notes OR online breakout rooms
- Remind of sprint goal and product goal - shared understanding
- Potentially discuss changes in market - metrics, customer usage, potential impact features may have
- Invite stakeholders to rotate between stations to try out each feature
- Make sure it doesn’t turn into the scrum team offering selling points
- Make sure stakeholders don’t become anchored in certain opinions so team can get diverse feedback
- Bring all feedback sticky notes into the middle for all to see
- everyone has time to ready feedback
- group into themes
- try facilitation techniques of gallery walk and affinity mapping
- Discuss what the next most valuable thing to work on is & adapt PB accordingly
Having trouble engaging stakeholders and users during Sprint Review? Try…
- Try to encourage people to interact with the product
- Try a Sprint Review Bazaar Format
Benefits (3) of facilitate Sprint Review in “Bazaar mode”
- Stakeholders need to touch the product - will do things that actual users do e.g. not sunny scenario stuff
- teams need to share their status and give insight in their learning ability with the stakeholders by discussing the challenges they faced and are facing - elicits collaboration, because the people funding the team have a benefit in getting the teams unstuck
- opportunity for stakeholders to interact with the teams to learn which decisions they can take to maximize their ROI
Tips for Sprint Review in “Bazaar mode”
- invite stakeholders who will add value e.g. not random customers who haven’t been involved
- communicate features that will be inspected
- invite bill payer - healthy pressure on team
- hands on usage of features NOT a demo
Explain the idea of Bazaar mode
- run multiple inspections in parallel
- For each delivered feature, create one “shop” in your bazaar. Attendees of the Sprint Review need to choose which shop they want to visit. People can visit two shops per Sprint Review.
- space out “shops” so they don’t disturb each other
- banner per shop
- timebox - SM must enforce this!
- Arrange for a whiteboard, a projector or large screen, snacks and drinks and create an informal atmosphere.
Give the specifics of Bazaar mode (long!)
- The SR is hosted by the PO. The Scrum Master (SM) facilitates.
- Start exactly on time. Even if nobody shows up.
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5 minuteswelcome:
- PO welcomes stakeholders and the teams.
- remembers the sprint goal(s) or release goal as set at the start of the sprint (committed work).
- shortly bring relevant events to memory.
- Take care of keeping the focus on the delivered software and work done.
- Do not abuse this meeting foranymanagerial or operational updates; This is not the information the attendees came for.
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5 minutes introduction:
- SM introduces the SR agenda, hands out stickies and pens to every attendee, remembers attendees that we are looking for feedback and keeps a strict time schedule: the SM makes sure there is a big countdown timer or rings a bell when a time-box expires.
- The SM actively gets people to diverge and converge.
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5 minutes pitching all features:
- For each feature that will be inspected, a team member gives a short pitch (one liner) what attendees can expect to learn in their “shop”.
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20 minutes SR round 1 (diverge):
- All attendees visit one shop, work with the product and generate feedback.
- Most of the times, a team member will aggregate or prioritize their findings (self-organization) for their shop.
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10 minutes feedback (converge):
- In front of everybody assembled, the PO asks what has been learned, randomly picks people to share their feedback. The PO needs to do this, to ensure a proper mix of people get to do their say in a structured way. While thePO collects feedback (per shop), the SM groups the stickies. People will come to help them out as this is little time for lots of stickies.
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20 minutes SR round 2 (diverge):
- During the second inspection round people have the opportunity to visit another “shop”.
- The team members who were facilitating in round 1 now MUST go and visit other shops.
- Other team members will take care of the facilitation. It’s great for teams to attend other teams’ workshops. The cross-team learning here is immense. The PO works on organizing the collected feedback from round 1.
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10 minutes feedback (converge):
- Another round for the PO to ask attendees what they have learned.
- The PO should focus on feedback that will impact the upcoming sprint backlog.
- The PO should also make sure team members and stakeholders have their say.
- In addition, in this roundit is very important that the PO addresses the CEO or most important attendee directly to share their opinion. They need to share their thoughts in front of everybody rather than in one on one conversations
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10 minutes break:
- Time for the SM and PO to organize the acquired feedback of round 2.
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15 minutes conclusion:
- The PO elaborates on the collected feedback.The feedback is grouped and clustered per feature.
- If possible, the PO shares what he will do with the feedback and explains his choices. He highlights the feedback that will be picked up in the upcoming sprint and names the action points that were agreed for solving impediments.
- If there weren’t any, the PO addresses this too.
- Finally, the PO thanks everybody for their contribution.
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20 minutes wrap-up:
- Time for informal talks.
- The PO will use this time to gather more details or to make appointments to elaborate some of the findings.
- End exactly on time. This is a busy day: Sprint Retro’s coming up. On the way out, the SM collects feedback on the SR by doing a ROTI (return on time invested).
What is gallery walk?
Gallery walk is a facilitation technique where stakeholders and users are invited to walk around and interact with stations or displays showcasing different features or aspects of the product. This allows for a more interactive and hands-on experience, encouraging participants to provide feedback and share their thoughts. It can be a great way to engage stakeholders and gather diverse perspectives during a sprint review.
What is affinity mapping?
Affinity mapping is a facilitation technique used to organize and categorize ideas or feedback gathered during a sprint review. It involves collecting all the feedback sticky notes and grouping them into themes or categories based on their similarities. This helps to identify common patterns or trends in the feedback, making it easier to prioritize and address the most important issues or opportunities. It promotes collaboration and shared understanding among participants, as they collectively make sense of the feedback and generate insights for future improvements.
