Creating Focus At Time Box Planning Meetings

Focus is all important for meeting long term goals. When using a waterfall approach to software development the ultimate goal is usually huge and too far away to comprehend.

Using agile approaches help as we are focussing on the next release and some delivery 18 months away. Use your Time Box Planning meeting to identify the goals for the iteration. Make them achievable and pack a few extras into the iteration.

Make sure they are something functional, something where you can see the results, demonstrate to any stakeholders so they can give feedback on what they like and don't like.

Don't try to push the team by having too many goals in the Time Box (push then at the stand ups). We want to get to a position that people can trust that goals are going to be achieved so they can feel confident that progress is being made. The extras will be seen as tasty bonus treats.