Chapter 11: Agile Rituals
Daily Standups
Daily standups are short daily meetings in Agile, where the Agile team meets to assess progress and roadblocks or impediments.
They're meant to last no longer than 15 minutes and everyone should be standing up next to the team's physical or digital Agile Kanban Board. The rationale behind people standing up is that it forces people to focus and keep things succinct since they don't want to be standing up for too long.
The dynamic of this meeting is simple and informal. Everyone simply says what they worked on the day before, what they're working on today and if they have any issues, roadblocks or impediments.
The order in which people speak is irrelevant. And it's meant to be more of an informational meeting rather than a discussion. The Scrum Master acts as a facilitator of this meeting and ensures the team doesn't get caught up in discussions or that they go beyond the allocated time.
Sprint Planning
Sprint Planning is a session in which the Agile team gets together to plan for their next Sprint.
In this session, the team discusses which user stories they will work on in the next Sprint. Typically, this is an hour long meeting, but there is no hard rule around that.
Sprint Planning occurs after the end of the last Sprint and before the next one.
Backlog Grooming
Backlog Grooming refers to the process of cleaning, organizing and prioritizing the backlog. This is an exercise in which the Agile team gets together to "groom" the backlog.
User stories no longer required are removed from the backlog and those with lower priority moved to the bottom of the backlog.
Retrospectives
Retrospectives are one of the most important and valuable Agile rituals.
They occur after each Sprint and serve as a meeting or gathering for the team's reflection on continuous improvement. At retrospectives the Agile team discusses three questions:
- What went well?
- What didn't? and
- What can we do differently?
Everyone contributes to answering those questions honestly as the team reflects on the previous Sprint and prepares for the next one.
Retrospectives are relaxed and informal but Agile teams generally document what they have discussed in a Word document or online repository.
Demo Sessions
Demo sessions are the basically an Agile event that allows the Agile team to demo or showcase progress, a working prototype, a Proof of Concept or a completed product to the Product Owner and other stakeholders.
Demo sessions can be scheduled separately to other meetings or they can be included in existing ones such as a Project Board meeting.
The purpose of a demo session is to allow the Product Owner and other stakeholders to visualize what the team has accomplished.