A Guide To Agile Meetings (And How They Can Benefit You)

Did you know that 55 million meetings occur each week in the United States alone? Out of those 55 million, only 11% are considered productive in any way, shape, or form. Over 24 billion hours are considered wasted meeting time each year, while executives spend over half of their workweek in meetings. Plus, do you know anyone who enjoys regular meetings?

Enter: Agile Meetings.

What is Agile?

To understand agile meetings, we must first look at how they came to be. A concept that began taking shape in spring of 2000, Agile was formally launched in 2001 with the Agile Manifesto. Drafted by 17 tech professionals, it aimed to help teams develop better software. It was also formed to bring efficiency to software development and allow new products to go to market faster. A simple list of priorities and some mindset optimization led to a new way to innovate.

In other words, using the concept of agility to maximize our progress.

The technique they developed together was characterized by short bursts of concentrated productivity. Breaking up a project into phases and bite-sized chunks allow teams to continuously analyze their progress and feel accomplished in each task. The process specifically encourages continuous collaboration.

What are Agile Meetings?

While methods like Robert’s Rules Of Order encourage parliamentary procedure and lengthy meeting agendas to work on bigger tasks in more all-encompassing ways, agile meetings take an entirely different approach. Agile meetings are highly focused.

They do not require introductions or icebreakers and they do not span topics. You are not likely to leave one without a problem solved or a clear objective.

The Scrum framework was developed as an agile technology for effective team collaboration. While it originated for technological advancement, it has been successfully used across platforms and industries such as sales, marketing, and research. The concept is that you set your day and projects up in intervals of work referred to as “sprints.” These sprints are timeframes during which teams work on a particular task or project.

At the end of each work sprint – be it a few hours, a few days, or several weeks – the team analyzes their productivity and output. This way, they can optimize the process to better serve them or their clients in the future. Agile meetings were developed to accompany this mindset and approach to work.

Types of Agile Meetings

There are four types of agile meetings that were developed to help facilitate a work sprint. You can use all four, or a catered integration of some of them to help achieve your goals. Widely, the number of meetings and types of meetings you engage in will depend on the size of your team and the scope of the project at hand.

Sprint Planning

Sprint Planning meetings exist for the Scrum team to plan their next sprint. Attendees often include the members of the task team, the scrum master (or project manager, overseer of the process), and the owner or originator of the product. During this session, they will choose sprint objectives and priorities, outline tasks, and divvy up responsibilities among team members. Of course, sometimes attendee participation is flexible depending on your overall objectives.

Daily Standup

While we would never encourage an all-encompassing daily standup option for a company to engage in, we are huge fans of the daily standup during an agile sprint. Not everyone is required to participate, though the development team should definitely be required to attend. Once you are in the thick of a sprint, it can be difficult to determine if processes are working or if people are experiencing more issues than they are willing to admit.

Early check-ins each day allow you to address only the problems you may be having or questions you may have for other people on the team so that you can all go about your workday with fewer interruptions. It can also help guide the task flow if something just isn’t working for any piece of the team or project.

Sprint Review

While you are still in the direct aftermath of your project, a sprint review is often addressed. This involves the entire team, the CSuite team or product owner, the scrum master, and often stakeholders in the project. The work completed during the sprint is presented by the team. New features are highlighted, especially in the event that a sprint was formed around a product upgrade. It is used as an open forum for answering questions and collecting feedback from all those involved.

Sprint Retrospective

Often mistaken as another type of sprint review, the sprint retrospective is solely for the development team and scrum master. It is to gather feedback and perspective on how the sprint went, and how the team can improve their processes for similar future projects. At the end of the meeting, action items for the next collaborative experience should be noted.

Can Agile Meetings Happen Remotely?

Let’s face it. Remote meetings do tend to present conflict. There could be environmental distractions you otherwise wouldn’t experience in an office space or conference room. Some internet connections could experience lag time that presents confusion or reduces the structure of the meeting. Someone may not have the means or knowledge to present varying items, or technological issues could arise. Though 91% of people said they use video conferencing tools at work, literacy in the product doesn’t always ensure it will work properly every time.

Agile meetings are perfect at a remote capacity, as long as your team has synced and integrated reminders to keep them on task for when each meeting begins. As noted, outside distractions are harder to block out when you are not in a designated office setting. Encourage any wayward workers to set notifications to any digital devices they keep on their person, including phones, tablets, laptops, desktops, and watches.

Benefits to Agile Meetings

Though there is a slew of benefits to approaching an agile meeting setup within your work community, there are some standout favorites. For one, it keeps all members of the team abreast of project advancements and updates. The meetings open up discourse for each member to voice their concerns and thoughts and to actually feel like they are a part of the project. This can be especially helpful when it comes to remote teams.

Agile meetings allow people to contribute their expertise where kinks might need to be worked out, especially in standup meetings. While most of the sprint is a head-down, focused concept, the structured meetings allow a bit of reprieve from feeling like you are working solitarily in all of it. There is a sense of accountability established in each meeting that allows people to refresh themselves and keep their work on the task.