My Agile Day

Real Stories From Real-World Agile Teams

Arts and Science of Effective Meetings

  1. Before Meeting
    1. Have a crisp Agenda. No Agenda, No meeting.
    2. What’s the ideal outcome of the meeting?
    3. What’s the minimum number of people to achieve that outcome? 2 Pizza Rule (Amazon)
    4. Share Summary before (Amazon)
  2. During Meeting
    1. Keep one facilitator
    2. Keep the altitude, keep each other honest
    3. Keep track of the conversation Dialogue leaders work to keep harmony and productivity within a group discussion, thereby supporting the emergence of generative actions. David Kantor’s four-player conversation model suggests actions a person may take during a conversation: movers initiate ideas and transition the conversation; opposers challenge ideas and the conversation; followers complete ideas and support the conversation; bystanders provide perspective on the ideas and conversation. 
    4. Time box
    5. Brainstorm to gather divergent ideas (facilitation techniques)
    6. Decide to converge on the solution (facilitation techniques)
  3. Concluding
    1. Take action items.
    2. Assign action items with hard edges. And a automatic “ping back” mechanism.
  4. After
    1. Look out for the “Ping”
    2. If “ping” is absent, follow up.