Standup Poker: How we used this one game to hack our daily stand-up & teams mindset !
One the most significant ceremony of any Agile Team is Daily Standup where the team members get together and plan for their day. But quite often the daily standup turns into a zombie status update meeting where team members come together to blurt out their updates and walk away to their desk without ever maximizing the benefit of that meet up.
In this session I will share a case study of how we created a simple experiment that turned into Standup Poker and revolutionized our Daily Standup. This technique helped us uncover true insights of teams progress and got the team talking about strategic planning and plan to remove any impediments as a "team" on daily basis to accomplish their sprint goal and commitments.
We learnt that when team members started using this technique, hidden impediments and dependencies started to emerge and team members organically started to re-plan and prioritize their work to accomplish the Sprint Goal. Product Owner also found great value in this technique as this helped them see the teams true progress and engage with the team to re-prioritize user stories and even take a story out of the sprint if required. Scrum Masters started to observe a trend in the confidence level over the span of the sprint and brought that information to Sprint Retrospective to discuss and brainstorm ways to improve and keep the confidence levels high throughout the sprint. The discussions and observations due to Standup poker resulted in teams committing better and more confidently during Sprint Planning and got into the rhythm of always accomplishing their sprint goal, but more importantly they started improving everyday and got into "continuous improvement" mode.
The content, exercise and message of this session highlight the agile principles of individuals and interactions over process and tools and fostering the mindset of continuous improvement.
In this session we will share examples, stories and experiences from trying the Standup Poker and how this simple technique converted a bunch of individuals into a TEAM !!!
Outline/Structure of the Talk
Introduction (2mins)
Sample Stand-Up with volunteers in Audience (10mins)
Inspiration behind the Experiment (3mins)
Standup POKER !!! (5 mins)
Audience try the Standup Poker Technique (15mins) (Interactive)
Audience share their "Aha" Moments (5mins)
Look for Pattern (10Mins)
Questions & Answers (10mins)
Learning Outcome
Attendees will learn:
- Learn a new technique on how to make their standup more effective by making it a more strategic and planning meet-up rather than status update.
- Scrum Masters will learn how to make their teams more self-organize and take ownership and accountability of Sprint Goals & Commitments
- Scrum Masters will also learn to how to extract hidden impediments that could be holding their team back
- Team members will learn how to commit and plan as a "Team"
- Product Owners will learn how to engage and guide the team on daily basis to accomplish the sprint goal to deliver maximum value.
Target Audience
Team Members, Scrum Masters, Product Owners, Engineers, Executives, Leaders
Video
Links
This talk has been presented at following places:
- Agile Arizona 2016 (May 6, 2016)
- Global Scrum Gathering Orlando (March 18-20, 2016)
- Phoenix Scrum User Group (Feb 2016) and has been received very well by the audience.
Link to recap on the Standup Poker session at Phoenix Scrum User group: https://phxsug.org/meeting-recap/
Standup Poker @ Global Scrum Gathering Orlando (March, 2016)
Information about this technique can be found at www.StandupPoker.com
Speaker Experience:
- Agile Arizona 2016 (May 6, 2016, talk accepted) : Topic: Standup Poker
- Global Scrum Gathering, Orlando(April 18-20,2016): Topic: Standup Poker: How One Change Revolutionized Our Daily Stand Up and Teams Mindset !!!
- Agile India 2016 (March 14-21, 2016)(Proposal Accepted): Topic : Beyond User Stories: Taking your Team to Next Level of Awesome!!!
- Arizona State University, Guest Speaker (CIS 440 Spring Semester 2016) : Topic: Design Thinking and Lean Canvas
- Phoenix Scrum Usergroup (Feb 8th & 20th, 2016) : Topic: Standup Poker: How One change Revolutionized our Daily Standup and Teams Mindset!!!
- Arizona State University - Guest Speaker (October 8,2015) : Topic: Beyond Coding: Creating Workplace for Creative Workforce of Tomorrow!!!
- Global Scrum Gathering - Shanghai 2015 (September 15,2015) : Topic: "If Your User Story Came Alive!!!"
- Phoenix Scrum User Group (June 18, 2015) : Topic: "Beyond User Stories: What Motivates Agile Team Members"
- RallyON 2015 (June 15, 2015) : OpenSpace : Topic: "If Your User Story Came Alive !!!"
- IIBA Phoenix Chapter (April 14,2015) : Topic: "Role of BA in Agile Team"
- Phoenix Scrum User Group (May6, 2014) Topic: "Story of the Story"
- IIBA Phoenix Chapter (June 10, 2014) Topic: "Story of the Story"
- PMI Phoenix Chapter (December 2013) : Topic: Agile Games
- Phoenix Scrum User Group (September 2013): Topic: "Lean Coffee"
- Phoenix Scrum User Group (July 02, 2013): Topic: "Let's Play Games": Agile Games to Drive Learning
Feedback Form Comments from Attendees of this session at Global Scrum Gathering Orlando, Florida
- Fantastic presentation! The speaker was very engaging and energetic. The topic was very helpful and relevant. I am going to take this back to my team and use it immediately. He was such a dynamic speaker AND a lot of fun! What I loved was that this method was actually born out of a very real need he saw in his own standups, so it's not a superfluous practice someone just made up to sell playing cards. :D
- Great energy and awesome transfer of knowledge. Great Hack!!
- Speaker is energetic and enthusiastic to encourage interest and participation; gave us tools to track Sprint confidence levels - great takeaway for me.
- Should be a keynote speaker. Great energy
- Enjoyed the hands on aspect and the resources.
- Great engaging and fun session!
- Very enthusiastic! Great topic! Very relatable
- This is the first session where I walked away with a new technique I could apply on day 1.
- A really good session with take away lessons that can be implemented right away!
- Great idea and love the enthusiasm!!
- Thank you! A technique that I will use and share with the teams I work with. This ranks as the best session I have attended so far. Hope to see you present next year!
- This technique will be a great addition to my standup!
- Excellent presentation. Speaker was full of energy. The topic was extremely relevant. Excellent all around.
- Most useful session yet with an immediate Kaizen style improvement we can implement tomorrow.
- Favorite session. This was awesome! Provides great info to take back and use immediately! Love the animation of delivery!
- I almost didn't go as this was under the mission control track and I've been doing scrum for 10 years. Glad I attended!!
- Can't wait to share this technique with my teams!
- Best session yet. I can put Standup Poker in place this week. Really appreciate his willingness to share with other too!
- Easily my favorite. Wow! He was dynamic and compelling. And the content will change the way I do business. Huge hit. Thank you for scheduling this one.
- Kalpesh limited his WIP perfectly - the group came away from a session on a narrow topic with good experience in a new "tool" to use in stand ups. Initially I thought the topic was too narrow but I am delighted to see how he used the time! Very effective session
- Stand-up Poker is an excellent grass-roots oriented tool based on deep experience in the field. Great presentation. (Might have been better to answer the Q&A in real-time with a quick answer instead of parking it and allowing for more deep dive time permitting at the end).
- Would have liked to attend more of his sessions. Great speaker
- Great speaker. Will definitely try this technique on my team!
- Great energy. Great message. Great applied participation in session. Immediately useful. Excellent!
- I'm definitely using this when I get back home. It's something I already occasionally ask my team, but now we'll understand how to make it a regular and vital part of our standup!
- The only session I attended so far with a practical takeaway I can implement immediately. Liked it wasn't in the abstract, rather had tactical things I can actually use.
schedule Submitted 6 years ago
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