One of the great things that Agile has given us is a pattern of frequent, regular, short, focused timebound meetings, or ceremonies. Time is important, it not only keeps things efficient, but it helps people focus on the important. The epitome of this is the daily scrum or stand up meeting. A few minutes each day when the team gathers, shares progress, removes obstacles, and gets on.
Usually it works in conjunction with a Kanban board with three columns – ‘To Do’, ‘In Progress’ and ‘Complete’. Very simple, very effective.
Using agile timers
Timers can be very helpful in establishing the discipline of these meetings. Particularly if you are just starting out. Or if you have problems maintaining that discipline. You will find a wide selection of agile timers that you can quickly copy and paste where you need them: Slide decks, documents, online whiteboards, Zoom or Teams backgrounds, or directly onto your desktop.
However, if you are simply wanting a basic Powerpoint timer to get started, click on the picture on the left.This will download a simple slide, which you can then open on your computer and present in slide show mode. It has the three key questions, and allows people 90 seconds or less to answer them. Simply click the slide each time you need to reset it. And press esc. to stop. The explanation can be found on slide 3 (including how to edit it).
The company Atlassian, is not only a user of Agile methodology, it is also a major advocate and enabler of it. Its Agile guide is straightforward and very helpful. And its Trello Kanban software proved to be the most important element of running my business for 8 years.Timers for Trello
If you are using Trello, in whatever form, adding a countdown timer to it is very straightforward. These timers can be very helpful in keeping remote Daily Standups moving efficiently to time.
They can also be helpful in any other discussions where you are using Trello as a central component.To add a countdown timer to a Trello list:
- Save the timer that you want to us to your computer by right-clicking it and clicking ‘Save image as …’
- In Trello, click ‘+ Add another card’ on the list you wish to place the timer, give it the name ‘Timer’, and drag it to the top of your list
- Click on the ‘Timer’ card to edit it, click on the ‘Cover’ button, and then on ‘Upload a cover image’
- Navigate to where you saved the timer, select it, click ‘Open’ and it will upload and begin counting down
- Click the cross in the top right of the card to close it, and it will continue to function at the top of your list
- Refresh the webpage to reset and restart the timer (each person will need to do this for themselves)>
Try it out in Trello now using the countdown timer on the right, or find your own timer at: https://meeting.toolchest.org/timersTrack your progress to ensure the efficacy of this strategy.