5 Ways to Boost Engagement During Sprint Planning
Sprint planning is an essential part of the scrum framework, but sometimes it’s not as effective as it should be. In order to keep your team members engaged during sprint planning meetings, you can use some of these simple engagement-boosting ideas. This is in order to help them get excited about the work ahead and make them ready to dive in headfirst. By implementing these five ways to boost engagement during sprint planning, you’ll find yourself more likely to hit your sprint goals. Also, you will be more likely to be able to give great feedback on how the product direction should go in the future
1) Get People Excited
Introduce the concept of a quiz. Invite people to join in and find out their sprint power or their team's sprint power.
After the opening phase, ask participants to join in on the live multiple choice quiz.
Participants can answer via their phones. The results will be shared in real-time on the screen.
After this, allow people time to get back into focus after the excitement of a quiz by engaging in a more low-key activity like reflecting on the accomplishments of last month.
2) Set the Tone with live multiple choice questions
One way to get team members engaged during a sprint planning is to run a live multiple choice quiz. When you're looking for engagement, it's important not only to provide the right activities but also the right tone. A live multiple choice quiz is a good way to start a sprint planning because it gets everyone involved, gives them an opportunity for engagement, and sets the tone for other activities ahead.
3) Get Everybody Involved in the Discussion
In an era where everyone has a voice and is demanding attention, it's important for managers and team leads to find ways to involve their employees in the discussion. Below are seven tips for getting everybody involved in the conversation:
Invite input from others.
Keep things light hearted and fun.
Ask questions that people have opinions on, not ones they just guess at.
Motivate participants by asking them what they want or need out of the meeting and give them something specific to accomplish.
Lead the meeting by actively participating yourself and sharing your thoughts with others.
4) Mix Up Who Speaks
This week, instead of giving the team a static list of tasks and assigning a person to each one, it can be decided to mix it up by implementing a different opening phase and add a live multiple choice quiz. In this way, everyone contributed equally, and many topics were covered in depth before getting into more specific topics. The result is that more people are engaged in the conversation now and inputting their thoughts, even if they don't know much about the topic at hand. An equal input is gained from every member of the meeting this way, promoting the sprint.
5) Conduct Closing Activities
Consider conducting a closing activity or acknowledgement at the end of your sprint meeting. It can be something small, like asking everyone in the room what their favorite part of the meeting was. By using a live Q&A. Or it could be something a little more involved, like sending an email survey that asks for feedback on items discussed during the meeting. Closing activities are a great way to get people involved and invested in both you and your team, which will hopefully lead to better work down the line. Sendsteps help you keep everyone involved during the meeting, by using different question types in an interactive presentation.
Saskia Zwaak
Saskia started as the first intern on the marketing team and is currently a full time Junior Marketeer. She established the roots to create new blogs with the purpose of creating content to help others. Nonsense content is not up to Saskia’s standards as she only believes in bringing value to her readers.