Nemawashi & Scrum Events

Are you familiar with anyone of these phrases?

“Consensus-building”, “Getting people on the bandwagon”, “Obtaining buy-in”, “Sending up a trial balloon”, “Testing the waters”, “Getting everyone on the same page”, “Greasing the skids”, “Behind the scenes persuasion”, and “Lobbying”?

Then ‘Nemawashi’ shouldn’t sound odd to your ears. But none of those terms actually share the same intent as that of what Nemawashi is all about.

Borrowing text from Wikipedia,

Nemawashi (根回し) in Japanese means an informal process of quietly laying the foundation for some proposed change or project, by talking to the people concerned, gathering support and feedback, and so forth. It is considered an important element in any major change before any formal steps are taken, and successful nemawashi enables changes to be carried out with the consent of all sides.

It is considered an important element in any major change, before any formal steps are taken, and successful nemawashi enables changes to be carried out with the consent of all sides.

Nemawashi literally translates as “going around the roots”, from ne (根, root) and mawasu (回す, to go around [something]). Its original meaning was literal: digging around the roots of a tree, to prepare it for a transplant. This process involves bringing the dirt from the new location, and introducing it to the tree, before the transplant, so the tree can grow accustomed to the new environment before it gets there.

Nemawashi is often cited as an example of a Japanese word which is difficult to translate effectively because it is tied so closely to Japanese culture itself, although it is often translated as “laying the groundwork.”

When something new comes up to our mind, we start thinking of it. Then we search in Google, look for advice from other people. Now think of all these expected to happen and get fulfilled with a large team?

Definitely, that will a big mistake we might regret in the long run.

Now by applying Nemawashi, we offload re-framing a meeting’s intent, explore options, and come to consensus in more natural smaller conversations before even the meeting start.

In Japan, it’s typical for small subsets of the participants to get together prior to the meeting. This allows for more frank and vigorous discussion than is possible when everyone is together in the larger meeting.

Now how are we going to bring this concept in Scrum events?

Let us take Sprint Review for example and apply Nemawashi in practice.

Step 1 – Days prior to the event, create a focused agenda with what you will need to cover.

Step 2 – From there, identify who the key stakeholders are for each decision that needs to be made or item that needs to be discussed.

“Collecting feedback from the right people is crucial to make the right product decisions: If you invite the wrong individuals or if key people are missing, then you are unlikely to receive the feedback you need. You should therefore make sure that you invite the right individuals.

It's helpful as a Product Owner to explain to the individuals why they are asked to attend the meeting and what they are likely to see in order to encourage them to participate and to set their expectations.” – Roman Pichler, Product Management Specialist, Certified Scrum Trainer (CST), Scrum Alliance

Step 3 – When you’ve done that, call these individuals and talk through the details and, depending on the issue, take the time necessary to find consensus with them or help them see why this change is important to the organization’s vision and goals.

It's best to collect user and stakeholder feedback separately using different techniques. Sometimes its fine to split the meetings into parts to get the right synergy from respective stakeholders.

“Demoing the product increment to end users makes sense when very little functionality has been implemented. Otherwise, it tends to be more helpful to observe or measure how people actually use the product employing, for example, usability tests and early releases.

As these techniques usually require more time than the sprint review meeting offers—it may take several days to collect the relevant data after you’ve released a product increment to (selected) users—this naturally separates collecting the user data from gathering stakeholder feedback.” – Roman Pichler

Step 4 – Once you’ve finished speaking with each stakeholder, hold the meeting to discuss/announce the relevant changes or developments. Now that you have laid the foundation, the meeting should be short and fruitful.

Now that most of us are not collocated with the team or that PO / Stakeholders were busy visiting users and customers or attending a trade show or conference, the earlier mentioned steps lay the foundation for the Sprint Review meeting.

With such early and timely short conversations had by PO before the Sprint review helps the Development Team to collaborate and get feedback. And indeed getting any small direct feedback from the stakeholders is invaluable for the Scrum team.

This is not an alternate form of running Sprint Reviews/replacement to such scrum events. In fact, these earlier conversations in small groups help the participants reach a consensus which in turn means, less time in few long and draining Sprint Reviews. Also, it promotes better feedback to inspect and adapt further.

Now with you getting to hear ‘Nemawashi’, what are your plans next?

Share your views in the comments section.