SAFe and the TMM Syndrome | Too Many Meeeetings

Some of you like Agile, Scrum, Kanban, etc... some don't. It is not that Agile is not good, but also it is not the perfect solution. There are pluses and minuses. Among the most painful minuses it is the TMM syndrom (as my friend Fernando used to call it) Too Many Meetings.

How can you avoid falling into the Meetings trap with Agile and SAFe?

There are of course a few ideas, but you need to be bold and put them into practice. They can of course help, but you need a team that is independent and fully empowered to make these kind of decisions.

Step zero. Build a VISUALISATION of your meetings for a week/month to have a full view before you start analysing what to keep/transform.

Can you club some meetings together to avoid breakes and save time?

Do you have some meetings that are similar?

Do you observe some meetings where you have no clue what is going on? Quick wins. Delete them.

Step one. Have a closer look at the following aspects of the meetings:

WHY

Many people do Dailies but they are not working on a common topic together, so the daily usually could work better as biweekly or weekly. If transparency is needed over progrss, this could be ensured through smart boards in your tools.

Some Review meetings take place without reviewers/users/customers. In this case you need to reevaluate the meeting setup.

LENGTH

Meetings should be short and interactive to keep attention and help people actively contribute to the outcome of the meeting. What information is critical to achieve the purpose of the meeting? What information does not help? How can you focus the meeting on essentials?

PARTICIPANTS

How many people participate to the meeting? Do you have more than 8? In this case a few are speaking and the majority watch the game. It is like tennis. Two are playing, rest are watching. Keep your meetings small and invite only whoever can contribute.

Keep other people informed and share the information using smart tools, to avoid time waste.

Refinements are more efficient if they are small and everyone contributes. Follow the 3 amigos format as example.

FORMAT

Keep formats interactive and involve the participants.

Liberating Structures formats are very interactive and innovative.

Change sometimes the formats to make it more attractive for people, change the speakers, involve the audience. Let them shape it.

Step two. Experiment with changes for a while. Apply new formats, find better ways to keep people informed. Cut meetings from calendar, see if anyone notices/screams.

Step three. Check feedback. Is it better? Have we improved? Have we saved some time? How do we go further?

You may do this analysis in a group involving people from the teams, letting them feel involved. Who can find the best ways to simplify the work if not the people who work on the tools every day.