• Agile & Scrum Basics

How do you deal with an excess of meetings within Agile teams?

We regularly hear this when we get to work with teams that have been working Agile for a while: ‘We sit in meetings all day! Daily scrum, refinements, retrospectives, reviews and then also that stakeholder consultation.’ At Scrum Academy we often see it: well-intentioned Agile implementations that quickly get bogged down in meeting pressure. The problem is often not that there are meetings, but how and why they are held. Also, people tend to forget to look from a distance and ask themselves: which regular meetings are best dropped? In this article I will give you some concrete tips.

Sure, the Scrum framework has five fixed events with a clear purpose, clear timebox and a focus on transparency and adaptation. But once the purpose becomes blurred and meetings become routine, they lose their value and energy. The solution then lies not necessarily in fewer meetings, but mainly in making conscious choices about how to work together.

Out of the meeting mill in three steps

Step 1: Recover the intent of each event
A Daily is not a substantive in-depth meeting, but a moment of alignment and self-organization. A Retrospective is not a comprehensive Polish country day evaluation, but an opportunity to learn together. So ask yourself at every meeting: what are we really trying to achieve here? And above all: does this have to conform exactly to the timebox or can it be done differently?

Step 2: Use Scrum timeboxes as maximum, not standard
Just because you have four hours for a Sprint Planning doesn’t mean you must use them. If teams strictly adhere to the maximum duration of events, without considering whether they really need to, the energy drops off quite often. Sharp preparation often makes an event faster and more efficient, and therefore more enjoyable to participate in. This is where the Backlog Refinement meeting is actually indispensable.

Step 3: Dare to delete consultations
Not every consultation deserves a spot on the calendar. Look critically at recurring sessions and experiment with alternatives: a shared document or a Slack thread can sometimes provide more value than an hour of “zooming” together. And also look very critically at your regular consultations that are also out there. As soon as they overlap with one of the Scrum events, you would do well to drop that meeting. Duplication is never the intention and a waste of your time. And that of others.

Agile is not a meeting framework

Agile is about delivering value, certainly not about meeting. Meetings are just a tool. Therefore, all Scrum events are based on a deeper purpose, an Agile principle. When the means overshadows the end, it’s time to go back to the intent. Return to the principle and design the event to fit your purpose. Choose deliberately, keep reflecting and make room for collaboration. So at Scrum Academy, we help teams not only do Agile, but more importantly, be Agile. And that often starts with one simple question: “Why are we actually doing this?”

Want to discover with your team how to regain air and focus in your collaboration?

Let’s go. Agile does not stand for lots of meetings, but for valuable collaboration. By redefining the purpose of your meetings and putting timeboxes back into flexible use, you make room for what really matters: building value together.

We are happy to think with you, in a short session that you can schedule here without obligation, with no agenda overkill.