How to conduct "over the water cooler" session
Hi,
I am a scrum master for a development team that works as part of the wider group delivering product in collaboration with other 4 dev teams. During the last retrospective someone identified that during the informal conversation one issue with interfaces was highlighted and subsequently solved , that turned into action to continue doing this more often.
I am thinking of creating a platform for teams to foster the informal communication, and thought of the idea of afternoon tea session where I volunteered to provide biscuits . I scheduled this for 20 min in a office cafeteria.
I specifically did not set up an agenda , so that this will be just informal chat between one team and the other, I would host another team next week in round robin,
Now here is a question:
What kind of things shall be looking out for as a SM, is there any facilitation required for this type of meeting?
Regards
Has a "Scrum of Scrums" been organized to promote inter-team collaboration and planning?
Yes, there is a scrum of scrums but it is of a very technical nature, where developers discuss the dependencies between the stories, when I volunteered to participate in the Scrum of scrums I was told that I am not suitable , as it is of a technical nature.
> Yes, there is a scrum of scrums but it is of a very technical nature..
You highlighted a conversation where "one issue with interfaces was highlighted and subsequently solved". That sounds technical to me...and yet that problem was not apparently surfaced and dealt with in the Scrum of Scrums. Why not?
There may be an opportunity for a Scrum Master to facilitate the Scrum of Scrums so these matters are better identified and remedied. I suggest addressing that first before organizing any ancillary meetings.
In organizations with weak agile sponsorship, you may have to furnish tea and biscuits just to get people to attend, as the operational benefits in doing so may not be immediately apparent. That doesn't seem to be your situation though.
thanks for the information guys