Library of facilitation techniques

Scrum is like a house, where the team can be safe and self-organize. They will build trust and continuous improvement. Respect Scrum team as an ecosystem will help the team evolve and build up teamwork, and the values will come Day by Day, Sprint by Sprint.

In every Sprint, Sprint Retrospective is an excellent chance to inspect and adapt the way of working. There are many formats to help Scrum Master facilitates the Sprint Retrospective. But I always think about the format that can focus on the team environment, the ecosystem. I keep thinking and uphold that idea, and I found the inspiration from the "Parable of the Soils”. Borrow that parable; I create the Sprint Retrospective format “The 4 Soils”. The meaning of this format is to focus on how to help the Scrum team define what is the good/ bad impact to the house o of Scrum. From that, team will have the action or change to improve/ maintain the ecosystem.

This is a well-known and simple ice-breaker, designed to get to know the other members of your team well, as well as practicing your own poker face!

Test

The 4Cs game is a quick way to gather and organize information about any subject using four common key concepts.

Get groups to work together on a practical challenge and then debrief the learning points to direct attention to patterns on their teamwork.

A fun team-building energiser that encourages groups to recreate the scavenger hunt experience in a fully remote environment! 

The purpose of reflecting as a team is for members to express thoughts, feelings and opinions about a shared experience, to build openness and trust in the team, and to draw out key learnings and insights to take forward into subsequent experiences. Team members generally sit in a circle, reflecting first as individuals, sharing those reflections with the group, then discussing the insights and potential actions to take out of the session. Use this session one or more times throughout a project or program.

Five Ideas is an activity that encourages participants to go beyond what is good for their team or their department and work on cooperatively achieving common goals.

Teambuilding activities create high-performance teams whose members are extremely loyal to each other and to their team. Sometimes, however, the emphasis in teamwork results in reduced collaboration across teams. Similar problems occur when employees become so focused on their departmental goals that they ignore or downplay the strategic goals for the total organization.

Sync Squad is a cooperative puzzle that only rewards a group that talks. Each player drives one colour-coded robot through a shared chamber, and the exit opens only when every robot stands on its matching goal at the same moment. The catch: each hazard is keyed to a colour, and the thing that's lethal to your teammate is completely harmless to you — so you can never just play your own robot.

In this interactive, teams will come together to become a human version of the device listed on their index card. This activity is a means to build team dynamics and also a way to address any challenges a team might be working through as this activity is completely dependent on everyone coming together as a group and playing a part.