We have developed a number of new "Scrum" practices which we apply to our meetings. For us meetings are User Story Workshops, Sprint Planning, Demos, Retrospectives, plus some misc client meetings.

While we use scrum, and these practices, they are not restricted to scrum, and can be used for any meeting.

Odd Times

Problem:

Meetings start almost on time, but the small delay of a few minutes has already drained the high energy feel from the team.

Cause:

Times are naturally rounded. 10:02 gets rounded to 10 and so on.

Practice:

Start meetings at odd times. We have our daily scrum at 9:53. This is clearly not the same as 9:52 or 9:54. We now we have replaced not starting on time, with starting with a debate over its 9:53 now?, or now? or now?

N-1

Problem:

Meetings start almost on time, but the small delay of a few minutes has already drained the high energy feel from the team.

Cause:

Most people are on time, but one person is firing off a quick reply to an email. While waiting another person quickly makes coffee, and so on.

Practice:

Start the meeting as soon as you have all but one participants in the room. Shut the door, and start, but do not ban the last person from the meeting (someone always has to be last). This is replacing the practice of starting exactly on time, which is harsher, but can cause more problems.

Visual Artifacts

Problem:

Meetings are boring, they have low energy, and little interaction.

Cause:

No engagement from participants in meeting even though they need to be there (if they don't need to be there, use another practice)

Practice:

Have a brightly coloured visually appealing focus for the meetings. Post it notes in retrospectives are well known and used. We also like to use coloured markers, lego, (and sometimes origami weapons). As long as it is creative, and many people can get involved.

Photos Minutes

Problem:

No lasting achievements from your meetings

Cause:

No one remembers what was agreed in the meeting, because minutes were either never written, or read

Practice:

Photograph the visual artifacts you created using the Visual Artifacts practice. Put the photos in order to tell the story of how you created agreement and what the agreement was.

Heatseeking Actions

Problem:

No lasting achievements from your meetings:

Cause:

Actions are agreed on, but they are vague and hard to implement

Practice:

When creating an action, ask and write down the answer to three leading questions:
1. Who is going to do this action?
1. When will this action be complete by? (works well combined with odd times)
1. What test can I do to give me a yes/no answer if it is done?

Eg:
By Tuesday 12:36pm Paul will have packed the broken coffee machine up ready for collection by the servicing company.