Making meetings meaningful.

If you have a daily team meeting, it can quickly become stale and monotonous unless you actively provoke the team with some interesting, different and fresh questions.

Following some work with the awesome Sima Mistry over the last few months we’ve come up with 25 daily provocations that can be picked based on where your team is right now, and what context is most relevant. Balance and innovation is important to keep meetings engaging and stimulating, even if they are short. Especially if they are daily.

𝗠𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗰𝘀

 • What work item / ticket had been in progress the longest? How do we progress this TODAY?

 • How is our burn down / burn up looking? 

 • What’s the oldest ticket in our backlog? What do we want to do about that?

 • Do we have any current work in progress that is an outlier in our cycle time?

 • How many days has it been since our last release?

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗺𝗼𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗹𝘆

 • If today went to plan, it would be like what? (Clean language style)

 • Looking back at this week, what’s one improvement we can carry into next week?

 • What’s one small win on this product that you are proud of?

 • What is some recent feedback we’ve received from customers / stakeholders?

 • What can we do today to celebrate our recent successes?

𝗧𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗴𝗼𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗼 𝘄𝗲𝗹𝗹

 • What’s one thing we can do today to make the sprint more successful?

 • What’s blocking us today?

 • Are there any dependencies we need to align on before moving forward?

 • Looking back at last week, what’s one learning that will help us this week?

 • What needs to be escalated beyond this group?

𝗙𝗼𝗰𝘂𝘀 / 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄

 • Is the work we’re currently doing in line with our goal?

 • What do you need to avoid today in order to stay focussed?

 • Do we have a clear plan for the next 24 hours?

 • How do you want to FEEL at the end of today?

 • Is there a work item we can swarm around in order to get it ‘done’ today?

𝗛𝘂𝗺𝗮𝗻 𝘀𝘁𝘂𝗳𝗳

 • How best can I support you today to progress work?

 • Is there a meeting you can decline today (where you don’t think you can add /gain value)

 • Pull a facial expression / use your hands to represent your best hopes for today!

 • Who can you pair with today to share knowledge within the team?

 • If you could master any skill what would it be?

Remember to pause after you ask any of these questions. Use the trick of waiting 10 seconds before you speak again to encourage others to step into the space.

What questions did we miss?