Submitted by jtegwen on
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BLUF: Pre-wiring a meeting might not just be a briefing. My "proposal" was a different (and more effective) way to run a retrospective. As the Scrum Master it is within my role to adjust the meeting. As a new employee I didn't have a lot of credibility. I "pre-wired" the meeting by asking some people to volunteer and agree when called on. It was very successful.
The problem:
I've been at my job as a Scrum Master for for less than 2 months. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(software_development)#Scrum_master
I've got two teams. The team in question has been together for a long time (3 years - an eternity in software). They've got their groove and they're very productive. My job as a Scrum Master is to help them be even more effective.
One of the members of the team told me privately he thought all of the agile meetings were a waste of time. I agreed with a lot of his complaints and my desire to make changes. I knew I had to prove that I could do that and make them effective. He wouldn't be swayed by opinions. (Nor should he.)
Additional, most of the team thought the retrospectives were a waste of time. After all, they didn't have a lot of problems. To me, retrospectives are the most valuable aspect of the scrum cycle. It's the vehicle for continuous improvement. With just the retrospective a team could recreate the value (if not the implementation) of the other meetings. It was critical to my credibility and effectiveness that I demonstrate how this was possible.
Pre-wiring
I spent hours putting together the retrospective I wanted. I had set a goal rather than general conversation. I had gotten their buy in on the goal previously. I only had to facilitate the conversation to show them the potential value. Then I heard the podcast on pre-wiring meetings and it gave me an idea of how to ensure it's success.
I went to 5 key people and asked them to volunteer when I asked the group for action or discussion. I'm from Minnesota so this is a big deal. It's a cultural thing to not step up first. These are also people in software - not the most extroverted bunch. One of the people I recruited was the one who thought the meetings weren't valuable. The others were all people I thought were aliens.
Results:
The meeting moved. Productive conversations were had. We decided on an experiment that will address a problem many people had - including my agile nay-sayer. The feedback I've gotten on the meeting has been resoundingly positive.
The meeting was a success! Even my nay-sayer was impressed with how much he got out of it. I'm sure it helped that we found one source of his complaints and came up with a plan to fix it.
As an aside, the other benefit of pre-wiring a meeting is that it made me more comfortable and confident than any amount of practice could.
Thank you Mark and Mike!