EBM open assessment question around improving a teams ability to innovate
You want to improve your team’s Ability to Innovate. Which of the following actions might help?
(choose the best answer)
Correct answer: D)
You chose: C)
A) Establish "No Meetings" days to help increase focus.
B) Improve the cross-functional skills of your team.
C) Reduce the number of product variants.
D) All of the above.
Feedback: All of these actions will enable the team to focus on value-added activities by reducing overhead and distractions.
On the one hand, I can understand why all answers are correct; however, on the other hand, if you establish "No Meetings" days, you are basically no longer doing scrum as the Daily Scrum and any other Scrum event that might need to occur during that period would not take place.
From the Scrum Guide Daily Scrum Section:
The Daily Scrum is a 15-minute event for the Developers of the Scrum Team. To reduce complexity, it is held at the same time and place every working day of the Sprint.
You can treat it as a meeting if you want. However, the guide further says,
The Developers can select whatever structure and techniques they want, as long as their Daily Scrum focuses on progress toward the Sprint Goal and produces an actionable plan for the next day of work.
and also,
The Daily Scrum is not the only time Developers are allowed to adjust their plan. They often meet throughout the day for more detailed discussions about adapting or re-planning the rest of the Sprint’s work.
In my view, the EBM assessment aims to towards a larger section of the organization and most likely speaking about the meetings which may not be always dealing with inspection and adaptation for the delivery of the value through Scrum or any other framework.
This is the last sentence of the opening paragraph from the most current Scrum Guide's section on the Scrum Events.
Events are used in Scrum to create regularity and to minimize the need for meetings not defined in Scrum.
I also have used this article blog post to illustrate the difference between meetings and events. https://www.socialtables.com/blog/event-planning/difference-event-meeti…
It says "All events are meeting but not all meetings are events". It goes on to say events are "to commemorate, celebrate, or raise awareness". My argument is that the Daily Scrum is an event.to raise awareness of the work that is currently being done, celebrate the success to date, commemorate the findings and to plan for the activities until the next time you gather for the event.
Your understanding is based upon the fact that all events are meetings but it doesn't recognize that there is a difference in purpose between the two. In my opinion, "No Meeting" days do not exclude specific events from occurring on those days. But I will also suggest that a lot of the Scrum Teams I have worked with have done virtual Daily Scrums one day a week, especially if they are geographically dispersed. Using a Microsoft Teams or Slack channel, everyone will participate in a discussion suitable for a Daily Scrum. They will often take longer than 15 minutes but the team all agree to participate and be "present" during the "usual time" so that the purpose is still accomplished. They are quite successful but none of the teams that have done these have ever opted to go totally virtual because they realize that it is not as effective as in-person interactions.
Thanks for the clarification guys.