Well, more specifically, planning meetings are boring. A colleague pointed this out to me and it was indeed a big shock to me. I think I must have been too busy sleeping through the planning meetings to notice it for myself. It’s a technique I perfected working my previous menial-labour-for-hire job; being able to appear like a functioning person whilst actually being sound asleep. The empty coffee cup in front of me is just for show.
But why is planning so boring? The same colleague postulated that surely it should be exciting, taking a fresh look at all the wonderful new work we, as a team, are about to embark upon. Surely this is where our Scrum happiness sourced – this is a meeting all about anticipation. Google is very happy to produce results which suggest that happiness is derived from the anticipation, not the event proper. And yet the fact remains – every single person I talk to about having their planning meeting has the same, resigned tone in their voice. Oh no, it’s planning day again.
So now I suppose I should be asking the really probing questions – what, specifically, makes the planning meeting a less pleasant alternative to a tooth extraction? What makes it worse than other meetings? (which, granted, aren’t exciting, just merely irritating) The following presumptions are based on my own experiences, and your mileage may vary.
Read more of this post
A Million Code Monkeys 