Have you ever wondered what a great kick-off for a new Scrum Team looks like? This article is part of the series on “How to kick-off an amazing Scrum Team“. The complete Practical Guide includes the following steps:
- Invite for a Kick-Off Meeting
- Socialize
- Explain the theory behind “Agile”
- Clarify roles
- Find slots for regular Meetings
- Discuss Tooling requirements
- Agree on Estimation processes & Metrics
- Create your Definition of Done
- Conduct a Refinement Session
Socialize
Purpose
Working in a Scrum Team is a highly social activity! You will spend a lot of time with the same people, maybe even in the same room. Sometimes people might even spend more time with their colleagues than their spouses! So, it becomes pretty obvious, that you will have good times when you laugh together. But also, you will have stressful times, when you are fighting with each other.
Every emotion and situation you know from social relationships will actualize in your Scrum Team one day. You might want to prepare your team for that. Also, you will be spending the whole day together for the Scrum Team Kick-Off! So make sure, that people familiarize themselves with each other so that they can feel comfortable throughout the day. This part of the Kick-Off will be your foundation for the whole day. If you skip that step in your meeting, you might experience some odd phenomena in your collaboration:
- During Kick-Off people will not talk to each other, but to you as a facilitator
- Some introverts will barely say anything in a group full of complete strangers
- People will quickly agree to anything that is being suggested, without a real commitment or buy-in. And after a while, they will start to criticize what has been already agreed to. So basically, your Kick-Off was ineffective
- You will miss out on a lot of fun! 🙂 As a result, energy levels will likely drop throughout the day
Actions
Plan for a Social Activity
Most important: Give the team some time to get to know each other! I am not talking about a 5-minute round-robin introduction round where everybody states their name. Instead, organize a fun activity where people can forget about work for a moment. Because trust is built through vulnerability. And allowing people to let go of their professional masks to express their authentic selves will help a lot! There are plenty of games and activities to encourage people to be themselves. Just pick one and set aside enough time to really enjoy this process! You know that you’ve succeeded when people are laughing and having fun. And you will know that you awkwardly failed when everybody just feels ashamed and is hoping for this to end so that they can proceed with the agenda.
Anchor positive emotions as mood and energy booster
Depending on the activity you choose, it might be helpful to also introduce some kind of anchor, that reminds people of the fun they had during that part of your Kick-Off. It can be a specific melody, an object that you created, a running gag, or any other type of experience that people connect with your activity. That anchor will serve you as a facilitator throughout the day to quickly re-activate your people and improve the mood when energy levels are running low. It might even work longer than a day! NLP practitioners know, that anchors work best, if the following criteria are met:
- Timing: set your anchor, when the mood is at its peak or right before the peak
- Intensity: the more intense the experience you created, the more effective your anchor will be
- Precision: reproduce the anchor as precise as possible to initiate your mood boost
- Uniqueness: your anchor should be unique to your situation. Avoid reminding people of other experiences with your anchor
- Purity: keep your peak experience pure and clearly separate it from other experiences of the day, so that they don’t mix. Breaks or changes of the setting (e.g. location) are great ways to separate your fun activity from other experiences.
Key Takeaways
- Working in a Scrum Team is a highly social activity
- A socializing activity lays the foundation for an effective Kick-Off
- Set aside enough time, so that people can truly express themselves
- Use anchors to re-activate your team
