“In our company, everyone had had their say even before we started the video conference,” says Elsa Graf. As a Scrum Master, she looks after her teams and uses the DecisionMaker application, especially now in times of crisis.
The current crisis is forcing us all to work together digitally. The shortcomings of making decisions together, which had already been obvious before the crisis, are now intensified in digital cooperation and limit the possibilities with remote collaboration tools.
Survey as preparation for the video conference
In preparation for kick-offs and other meetings, we send out a survey with questions (KiE-Scales) that help the Agile Master to recognize the current state of the team and what has to be done. The same applies to the success of projects or the quality of stories. Thus, the project manager can be well prepared for the meeting and the Agile Master for ceremonies.
DecisionMaker Survey clearly locates the current state of the team
With 5 to 10 short questions, the entire team can be portrayed in its previous collaboration, in the agile ceremonies and the backlog as well as in epics and stories and in many other areas. The results are freely available for download and are documented in this way. Later, the development can also be clearly mapped by querying the same survey again and showing the changes in the results.
The survey results show how diverse or homogeneous the team members’ views on collaboration are. It becomes immediately clear whether time still needs to be reserved for building good team dynamics or whether the team is already very focused on the topic. If there are individual deviations, you know that you should take care of these people or topics to find out what else is needed for good cooperation.
Remote DecisionMaker within the video conference
During the video conference, the remote DecisionMaker can be used to incorporate everyone’s assessments at any time in real-time, depending on the status of the discussion.
The results of the survey or resource questions show how the backlog is structured, how complete and well described the work requirements are, among other benefits. The backlog also describes how well the interface between stakeholders and the team is developed. Here you can see from the results to what extent the team gets a chance to do good work. That is, if the description of the stories is of low quality, it becomes difficult to deliver a good result.
Make video conferences more efficient
The problem of zone meetings is probably known to most companies. They take too long and, at the same time, produce too few good results. This is particularly due to an implicit rule: “Only one person is allowed to speak at a time”. The current crisis reinforces the obvious shortcomings in digital collaboration and weakens remote collaboration because only one person at a time can speak in the common conference tools. If this discipline is not observed, nobody is able to understand anything and frustration increases for everyone involved.
With the KiE-DecisionMaker, however, everyone can have their say at the same time and with 100% participation. If, for example, you are aware of the current state of affairs and know to what extent the agile ceremonies are lived, then it is not necessary for each participant to explain again what is bothering him or her, as the whole situation can be easily read off. This leaves more time for really important matters. Solutions, as opposed to problems, become the focus of discussion.
At the same time, the DecisionMaker eliminates the typical anchor-like effects and nobody is influenced by others. Everyone gets to vote and everyone is treated equally.
With the KiE-DecisionMaker to jointly supported decisions
Opinions, evaluations and arbitrary assessments can be collected with a survey and integrated into the meeting even before the interaction begins. Suitable response types are provided for the various topics.
During the meeting a KiE-DecisionMaking process can be mapped with the KiE-DecisionMaker, which records the results. Resource-oriented questions about what is needed to achieve an appropriate level of quality can continue to be discussed via video and can be checked again in real time after the input has been gathered.
For the resource question, the status is queried in advance with the KiE-DecisionMaker and checked again after the input. The prioritization and commitment processes can be easily carried out with the KiE-DecisionMaker and all participants can view the results online.
Success criteria of the KiE-DecisionMaker Survey
- Know the current status of teams and projects even before the start of the meeting
- Make meetings more efficient and shorter through solution orientation
- Predefined and at the same time flexibly adaptable decision-making processes are the success criterion for digitized decision making
- Using DecisionMaking processes to bring about decisions safely and promptly
- The right culture of openness, participation, focus, eye level, courage and commitment can be created when using DecisionMaking processes and the digitized KiE-DecisionMaker
- The participants are anonymous and no authentication or identification is required. No personal data of the participants is recorded or stored.
- The design is geared towards smart phones and can be used by the browser and thus by conventional tablets, notebooks and corresponding devices
Free use of the remote DecisionMaker
On this page you will find a description of the remote DecisionMaker.
More about the series Artificial Intelligence
More articles about artificial intelligence and how it can be extended with KiE can be found after the sources below at tag “Artificial Intelligence“.
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April 2020, Elsa Graf, Richard Graf
„We had already had everyone’s say before we started the video conference.” Elsa Graf
Sources:
GRAF, Richard. The new decision-making culture: Success through jointly supported decisions. Carl Hanser Publishing Munich 2018
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