The Meetup Formats

This is a short description of the formats we use for the AgileWorks meetings. They have been refined over the years, and they worked very well in our context.

We have two types of meetings, based on the general topic:

• Organizational, where we discuss topics related to team, project and product management practices
• Technical, where we practice software development skills like unit testing, Test Driven Development, clean code, refactoring, pair programming etc.

The community adopted three organizational meetup formats:

• Open discussions with no specific topic
• Discussions on a specific topic
• Presentations / Workshops

The technical meetup types are:

• Code Retreats
• Coding Dojos
• Workshops

Organizational meetups

We generally favor discussions over presentations because the idea of a community is for everyone to contribute. While it was easier to get more participants when doing a presentation or a workshop, we have built in time the appetite for discussions as well.

This post describes for now only the open discussions with no specific topic, because it's the most difficult to get. We will try to add the others in time.

Open Discussions

We need:

• a facilitator
• a flipchart
• post-its
• markers for post-its
• markers for flipchart
• a timer

The general structure of the meeting is:

1. Introductions

Every participant has to answer a few questions in less than a minute:

• Name
• Position in the company / what he or she is doing every day
• Experience in software development, experience with agile
• Why did he/she come to the meeting?

1. Gathering topics

We give post-its and markers to every participant. In about 10 minutes, they have to write one or more questions or topics, one question/topic per post-it. When they're done, the post-its are sticked on the flipchart. The duplicate topics are eliminated or sticked over one another.

1. Prioritizing

We use dot voting for setting priorities. Each participant gets a marker and they have a number of dots they can use to vote one or more topics. Everyone must first gather around the flipchart and everyone should vote (roughly) in the same time, such that they're not influenced by the other people.

At the end of dot voting, the facilitator sorts the topics starting from the one with the most dots. The topic with the most dots is discussed first and then the next ones come in order.

Hint: We generally get something related to planning or estimation as the first topic, so you should be prepared.

1. Discussing the topic

Before starting the discussion, we set the timer to a 20'-30' interval (arbitrarily chosen). After the time is up, we will ask the audience if they want to continue the discussion on this topic or if they want to move on to the next one.

The discussion starts by asking the person or persons who proposed the topic and the ones that voted for it to describe their context and to ask one or more questions. The facilitator writes these questions on the flipchart for everyone to see them.

Then the tricky part starts. We noticed that Romanians are not used with speaking at such meetings, despite the warm-up. The facilitator should try to get from them ideas about how to answer those questions. Sometimes, a few people get involved and the conversation starts. Sometimes, the facilitator or someone else from the room will need to talk about the topic for a few minutes, giving some general ideas.

For example, in the case of estimation we touch a few subjects:

• estimation is just an estimation, not a commitment
• estimating in relative terms (T-shirt sizes, story points) is more precise than in absolute terms (hours, days)
• group estimations are more precise than individual estimations
• recommended reading: "Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art" by Steve McConnell

Once the facilitator gives these ideas, more people will get involved by asking questions and telling stories from their context. Remember, the role of the facilitator is to try to sparkle conversations rather than give answers. Also, the meetup is no place for answering all the questions, but just enough of them so that the people will leave with something to try in the next weeks.

1. Break

After about an hour, a 15' break is recommended. After the break, we ask the participants how long do they want to stay and establish a deadline for the meeting. You will have to end about 20' before this deadline, to allow time for closing.

1. Feedback

After the planned topics have been discussed, we ask every participant to answer three more questions: * What is one thing you learned that will help you (if any)? * How did you feel during the meetup? * What is one thing that you think we should change?

1. Closing

At the end of the meetup, the facilitator should briefly discuss plans for the next meetup (in terms of "it will be next month" or "it will be in two weeks"), remind them that they can use meetup.com to add ideas for topics for future meetings, remind them of the agileworks.ro website where they can contribute and thank them for participation.

1. Beer (optional)

Sometimes, a few people are willing to get a beer together after the meeting. That's usually fun and it creates bonding in the community, so we encourage it as much as possible.

1. Inspect and Adapt

Based on the feedback from the participants, the facilitator will need to think of things to try for the next meeting. There should be only one experiment per meeting, not more, so that it's easy manageable and the differences are easy to identify. We also recommend discussions with other facilitators, contacting other agile communities, reading blogs about meeting formats etc.