A Sprint Preparation Meeting
Before too long we were all seated around the table-tennis table in the meeting room.
“Where’s Artur?” somebody asked, and a peal of giggling erupted from Dima following a joke involving the toilet and food from the local shop.
Artur entered the room some minutes later, to be shunned by more comments and witty remarks. He quickly stepped out and returned again, grinning and carrying a chair.
Spreading the printouts in front of him, Erik began. “So, we have some stories here from Jacob. And maybe Jacob can explain the business value of these stories to you all briefly.”
Jacob explained the stories, what the value of implementing them is, and provided examples on how such features would be used.
The team listened, downcast, with barely a comment and seemingly little interest. Erik interrupted a few times to ask important questions such as ‘Why?’, and ‘Do we need it?’, and these questions were duly answered.
Ending by collapsing the house of cards Artyom had been building beside him, Jacob handed the stories back to Erik. Now it was time for a proper, in-depth analysis and discussion.
Tuning in and out as the developers argued, complained, and worked out technicalities in their native Russian language, Jacob remained in the meeting, hiding behind a laptop and carrying on with work.
From time to time the discussions became heated between Artyom, Erik, and Artur, with Andrey taking the more gentle approach of never-say-anything-unless-directly-asked-something.
After a lunch break a further three hours was spent getting estimates and planning the work. Numbers and English notes were written all over the stories, with fancy circles instead of dots above all the i’s.
“Ok Jacob we have estimated everything. In hours. But that doesn’t matter we have story points as well.” Erik said, suddenly switching back to English. “And, ah, we have thirty-four story points up to here,” he indicated his notes. “So, question is, do we do up to here or do we move something away and go till here?” again he indicated his notes, asking not just Jacob but for a commitment from the team in general.
It was clear from Jacob’s angle that there would be several new features worked on, regardless of which ‘here’ the team targeted. It was clear, too, that Erik was pleased with the team’s estimation work.
“It’s really for the team to decide.” Jacob said, looking around at the tired faces who sat around the table with their estimating cards in various patterns and logical piles in front of them.
“Well team?” Jacob said. “You tell me! I am not here to say how much work you should commit to, but I will say that last sprint we did thirty story points, and this sprint we have Erik working with a bit more velocity…” He let the thought hang in the air for the developers to either duck away from or grasp for themselves.
Switching to Russian, Erik said something to encourage the team to decide something. This went on for several minutes, before Erik announced that the team would target twenty-eight story points, instead of thirty-four. There was a general murmur of acceptance from the rest of the team.
Stretching, yawning, and pleased to have reached the end of the meeting, the team shuffled out of the room.
Tomorrow, the sprint would begin.
