Back to Forum

How to conduct "over the water cooler" session

Last post 04:52 pm June 19, 2017 by aa ss
4 replies
roman shtekelman
10:40 am January 16, 2015

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

Ian Mitchell
11:28 pm January 16, 2015

Has a "Scrum of Scrums" been organized to promote inter-team collaboration and planning?

roman shtekelman
05:22 am January 19, 2015

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.

Ian Mitchell
06:28 am January 19, 2015

> 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.

aa ss
04:37 am June 17, 2017

thanks for the information guys

By posting on our forums you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.

Please note that the first and last name from your Scrum.org member profile will be displayed next to any topic or comment you post on the forums. For privacy concerns, we cannot allow you to post email addresses. All user-submitted content on our Forums may be subject to deletion if it is found to be in violation of our Terms of Use. Scrum.org does not endorse user-submitted content or the content of links to any third-party websites.

Terms of Use

Scrum.org may, at its discretion, remove any post that it deems unsuitable for these forums. Unsuitable post content includes, but is not limited to, Scrum.org Professional-level assessment questions and answers, profanity, insults, racism or sexually explicit content. Using our forum as a platform for the marketing and solicitation of products or services is also prohibited. Forum members who post content deemed unsuitable by Scrum.org may have their access revoked at any time, without warning. Scrum.org may, but is not obliged to, monitor submissions.