What do you do if your Agile ceremonies are falling flat?

In my opinion if agile ceremonies are falling flat, it's crucial to reassess their purpose and make ways to adapt them to better serve the team's needs. For example let’s talk about retrospectives. If they are as exciting as watching paint dry, it's time for a revamp. Instead of the same old routine, try different retrospective formats like "Start, Stop, Continue" or "Mad, Sad, Glad" to get people talking and sharing feedback. Make it fun by adding games or props to lighten the mood. The key is to create an environment where everyone feels comfortable sharing their thoughts and ideas for improvement. This way we ensure the objective of having this ceremony is met and it adds to projects success as well.

Asking "why" we are doing those "ceremonies" and "what" we expect to get out of them is the starting point for avoiding the trap of rote and uninspired ceremonies. Based on the team's context, the ceremonies need to be adapted to be more "purpose-driven" than "structure-driven." Depending on the context and complexity of the work involved, a team may decide to have the "daily scrum" twice a day, once a day, once in 2 days, or not at all - and all options should be considered OK. The important thing is that the team thinks about how the ceremonies can serve them to meet their goals better.

Agile ceremonies are structured with a purpose to enable and improve engagement between development team and customers. In this case we need to find ways for reinstating value in the ceremonies. Few possible steps, 1. Observe and assess which part of the ceremony is loosing purpose. 2. Reach out to the team to understand more. 3. Accordingly work with the stakeholders to improve. 4. If necessary, find creative ways to engage. Eg, No Stand Up Fridays, Planning poker estimations. We had a similar situation with Sprint planning due to global teams (India & US). Folks with late night were less engaged. After observing this, we rescheduled the meeting to avoid late night on either side and that eventually improved the engagement.

Se minhas cerim?nias n?o est?o atingindo os seus objetivos, eu identifico as áreas onde há falhas, reúno minha equipe para uma retrospectiva mais minuciosa onde falamos a respeito dos desafios e tentamos mapear solu??es. Em seguida ajusto o processo conforme necessidade encontrada, dando ênfase na comunica??o, colabora??o e a adapta??o contínua.

Once in a daily scrum, I had observed a young developer not speaking enough and always trying to pass his turn, upon inspection I found that it was because he felt silly speaking infront of several other senior developers. Why? He did not feel included. This could be a potential blocker to the success of events in your team too.. pay very close attention to problems like these. Everyone should not only participate but also engage actively in every event.

Quando minhas cerim?nias ágeis est?o desmoronando, a primeira coisa que fa?o é analisar meticulosamente o que está causando os problemas. Em seguida, concentro-me em resolver as quest?es fundamentais, seja melhorando a comunica??o da equipe, eliminando obstáculos ou redefinindo as metas. Finalmente, recalibro nossas práticas ágeis para garantir que estejamos seguindo os princípios fundamentais e maximizando nossa eficácia.

I begin by evaluating/assessing the current state of your Agile ceremonies: Are they too lengthy, boring, or lacking in relevance? Then you’ll be able to gather feedback from team members and pinpoint pain points.

If your prayers to the agile gods are not being heard and they continue to desert your ceremonies, try joining hands in seance and see if you can speak with them directly. If it does not work when you call out to them, try asking one of the team members - it is their ceremony after all, so they will sound most sincere.

Agile ceremonies are tools that are only useful if people use them. It's vital to take a special care of people's engagement. Some crucial steps to me: - Convince people that it brings value (generally by pointing out existing issues and how it can make a difference) - Have 1 or 2 leading the initiative as it requires time (Scrum Master or someone in the team* (I'll come back to that later)), to create initial momentum for the team to be dragged-on - Listen to everybody's opinion individually (there's a preemptive human work to do as, most of the time, the "group effect" will make most people keep their complete and true thoughts) - Be engaged if you want your team to follow - *Don't let everything hold on 1-2 person's shoulders, rotate

- Identify the root causes of ceremony failure: communication gaps, unclear goals, role confusion, or facilitation issues. - Collaborate with the team to brainstorm solutions and improvements. - Implement changes such as refining processes, providing additional training, or adjusting roles and responsibilities. - Foster open communication and encourage feedback to continuously iterate and improve. - Stay adaptable and flexible, embracing change as part of the Agile journey. - Regularly reassess ceremony effectiveness and make necessary adjustments to ensure ongoing success.

Melhorar os processos que já existem sempre s?o uma op??o para que o desenvolvimento contínuo seja eficaz. Mapear todos os processos, procurando foco de ineficiência e contar com a ajuda do time para potencializar as melhorias.

Refining the process is one of the finest approach when you see your Agile ceremonies falling flat. First of all, understand where we’re missing the spark, reassess the events with specific topics to see what are the team needs. For example: Conduct a retro with topic as team opinions and thoughts on our agile ceremonies so the team can provide their thoughts and through which you can identify why the events are failing or where exactly we’re lagging. This is one of the ways to recreate our events based on team needs and make it successful.

When Agile ceremonies feel off, start by gathering feedback right after ???. Consider shortening meetings or reducing their frequency ?. Ensure everyone knows the goal of each session ??. Boost engagement with interactive elements like polls or breakout rooms ??. Maybe the facilitator could use a bit of training ??. Don’t shy away from experimenting with formats and observing what improves the vibe ??. Continuous improvement is key, so tweak, apply, and iterate for better sessions ???.

Good facilitators learn to read the room in the moment (and adjust on the fly). Pay attention to facial expressions, tone and body language. Maybe a break, fun activity or team building game will reenergize them. Or perhaps a longer-term action is in order. Consider starting off with ice breakers, or change the format. For example, instead of asking the same retrospective questions, change the format to trigger new thought patterns. I've seen a simple format change result in huge jumps in quality and quantity of engagement without changing focus. Ironically, retro formats all drive the same conclusions: What was positive, what was challenging, and what will we change in pursuit of continuous improvement?

Seeking feedback on everything is a great approach to move towards your goal achievements. When the agile ceremonies fall flat which depicts that there is a lag in a team and as a team we are missing the core motto of welcoming change and adopting iterations. Getting continuous feedback from the team will give you an idea about where you are and what we are missing as a team

I like to have sessions with my team where we discuss what's working well for our ceremonies, and what's not. It's almost like a retrospective. Reflecting regularly helps us to identify areas we can improve and optimize the efficiency of those ceremonies. This leads to more productivity and engagement.

I always do a ROTI at the end of my retro. ROTI stands for Return on Time Invested. This is a quick and easy method to gauge whether participants feel that the time they spent in a meeting was worthwhile.

1. Prepare yourself to be a good listener to create a space of trust, showing humility 2. Listen to each member of the team individually to have their true thoughts without embarrassment, fear, worries (requires 1.) 3. Listen to the team gathered to maybe harvest "pop-corn" feedback (someone's feedback may resonate with someone else's that would inspire more complete feedback) Use feedback to orientate your iterations when improving your processes like Agile ceremonies but not only (even basic communication can greatly improve with good feedback being taken into account)

Encouraging feedback from team members is the biggest key to increasing participation. Many workgroups need to be more responsive to feedback from lower-level/entry-level positions, rather than dismissive. A key example for me has been when one of my peers attempted to implement an addition feature into a project, we were tasked with that included multiple students with differing levels of experience. One of our less experienced students was able to identify a syntax error within the code. Rather than being dismissive, my peer who implemented the code thanked the student and made the correction. That feedback leads to students being more active during future meetings, encouraging more engagement and group problem solving.

This is probably the most difficult part in agile implementation. You can do zillions of things to improve your ways of working and transforming your teams, but what about MINDSET? How does mindset get created? 1. Don’t force change anything. 2. Don’t dump everything in one go. 3. Don’t implement a lot of metrics to start with. 4. Start small. 5. Demonstrate and celebrate short wins. 6. Seek everyone’s opinion and make sure it’s counted for. 7. Respect everyone. 8. Be clear and transparent in communication.

You've done the naked dancing bit, never want to see another cup of tea and are running short of team members, but you are STILL not getting the results you need? Maybe it isn't the gods at all and maybe the team just isn't thinking right. Time to try psychedelics. If it helped the Incas see their gods (or magic spacemen?), it may just work for your team. Book out the day for your ceremonies, get your team spaced out and turn the whole thing into a giant Hippy Convention.

Recommit to the purpose the ceremonies serve; they're inherently about communication. They don't add value by fulfilling a scheduled obligation of habit- they add value by advancing shared understanding.

Make sure everyone understand why we do what we do. If it's unclear or there are questions or doubts, talk with them to clarify. I like 1-to-1 talk to have the honest thoughts of the person I'm talking with. If some are reluctant, try to understand why. To adjust mindsets your must understand what's the current mindset of everyone and how far it is from the Agile mindset. Prefer to start small and simple, and iterate to improve. Avoid unnecessary complications and be very cautious on how you communicate with people to avoid discouraging them or nonchalant behaviour. Having people change their habits is very hard. It needs a lot of effort and patience to achieve it.

Feedback loops are everything. Ceremonies are only one kind of feedback loops.. Focus on the frequency and quality of the feedback loops. These include not just the formal team syncs but also the casual interactions that may have formed organically before, during, or after Agile practices were introduced. Don't assume that "they are wrong". Do invite conversations on what has been successful and build on that success. Be systematic and methodical about identifying. We believe in "letting teams decide" not because we think they will "get it right the first time" but rather over time, better ways of working will be uncovered organically with enough introspection and feedback loops.

In my opinion don’t even wait up until the team reaches Scrum Fatigue! Always keep changing the template of running ceremonies, bring in the creativity, encourage the team to participate more by keeping them engaging . Make them 2- way communication street . Know when to have lighter conversation, team building, shoutout for the work, celebrating every milestones, creating open environment, addressing the concerns and not forgetting to have fun to escape the matrix will always help to bring the life back!

I like to think this proccess as fine-tuning: you know what you want to achieve and how to do it (most likely) but it's a collaborative sum of efforts so it all comes down to what works best for the team as a whole. Be creative and be ready to fail and adjust as needed.

If you feel like Agile ceremonies are getting a bit boring, don't hesitate to get creative! The beauty of Agile is that it's flexible, so try out new approaches. You can inject some fun and creativity into your ceremonies by doing a "Silent Standup" using post-its or virtual whiteboards. You can also experiment with retrospective formats like "Sailboat" or "Speed" retros. Encourage your team to suggest and lead new ceremony ideas - this will bring a refreshing energy to your ceremonies! When an experiment doesn't go as planned, celebrate it as a learning opportunity. The key is to experiment frequently, embrace change, and continuously adapt ceremonies to keep them engaging, effective, and team-focused. That's the Agile mindset!

We shouldn't conflate "flow" with simple "dopamine hits" caused by mere "novelty". There is a dopamine reward when individuals and teams attain a state of flow, but the "activation" around "novelty" impacts differently than the kind of productive flow that we want to unleash within high performing teams. You can try new practices and experiment, but experimenting starts with a specific hypothesis to either debunk or validate. If you are "experimenting" without hypothesis, then you will never achieve much because it will lack focus, intentionality, and commitment. "Oh - this didn't work" is followed by fixating fecklessly on the next "new, shiny thing". It is an unproductive reinforcing loop. Ceremonies are by definition "rituals".

Experiment with removing ceremonies, not just changing them. You don’t need a prescription. Blah blah blah to reach the stupid 125 characters.

My gut instinct is to shake it up. Do a backwards planning session, reframe questions, do fun Team Building, try something new… My retros weren’t getting much response or feedback so I changed it from end of today vs in beginning of the day. 10 minutes to brainstorm and share 10 minutes to assess opportunities and try to be proactive bs reactive. I also change up my retro style- wheel questions, submit a question, panel talk, random theme…. Try something new.

If you're just here for the yellow badge then don't bother commenting unless you know what you're talking about. People who know scrum will see straight through you With reference to the scrum editions Feb 2010, October 2011, July 2013, July 2016, November 2017 and November 2020, number of times the word "ceremony" occurs? ZERO.

In my early career I didn’t understand how important it was to set stage in every agile event. I only reserved that for the retrospective. Setting the stage allows people to understand what if anything will be expected of them and what to expect from the event and the host. Setting stage is a practice you can implement in any style of meeting. Personal or professional - why? To create a state of safety and to foster choice. Everyone’s personal choice should always be empowered. Allow people to assess will this be valuable to me or not? Thanks for a great reminder