Team Offsite Essentials

Communication

1. 100 Restating someone's point to confirm you understood it Response: Paraphrasing Paraphrasing involves putting the speaker's message in one's words to demonstrate one's understanding and continue the discussion. Source: Wikipedia, “Active listening”
2. 200 A question that cannot be answered with only yes or no Response: An open-ended question An open-ended question is a question that cannot be answered with a "yes" or "no" response, or with a static response. Source: Wikipedia, “Open-ended question”
3. 300 Information given to help someone improve or continue good work Response: Feedback Performance appraisal interviews provide feedback to employees, at the same time facilitating collaboration and discussion on pay, career development and progression, and employee discipline, clarifying the expectations of subordinates, communicating their effectiveness in achieving those goals, and ideally improving employee engagement and satisfaction. Source: Wikipedia, “Performance appraisal”
4. 400 Paying close attention without planning your reply Response: Active listening When practicing active listening, the listener must pay attention to what the speaker is attempting to communicate and elicit clarification where necessary for comprehension. Source: Wikipedia, “Active listening”
5. 500 A task agreed in a meeting and assigned to one person to carry out Response: An action item The act required is then documented as an action item and is typically assigned to someone, usually a member of the group. Source: Wikipedia, “Action item”

Meetings

1. 100 The ordered list of topics for a meeting Response: The agenda An agenda is a list of meeting activities in the order in which they are to be taken up, beginning with the call to order and ending with adjournment. Source: Wikipedia, “Agenda (meeting)”
2. 200 The person who guides a discussion and keeps it moving Response: The facilitator A facilitator is a person who helps a group of people to work together better, understand their common objectives, and plan how to achieve these objectives, during meetings or discussions. Source: Wikipedia, “Facilitator”
3. 300 A fixed maximum amount of time for an activity Response: A timebox In agile principles, timeboxing is the allocation of a maximum unit of time to an activity, called a timebox, within which a planned activity takes place. Source: Wikipedia, “Timeboxing”
4. 400 A quick round in which each person shares an update Response: A check-in Worked out from the clue itself.
5. 500 The written record of what was discussed and decided Response: Meeting minutes Minutes, also known as minutes of meeting, protocols or, informally, notes, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. Source: Wikipedia, “Minutes”

Problem Solving

1. 100 A visual method that repeatedly asks why a problem occurred Response: The Five Whys Five whys (or 5 whys) is an iterative interrogative technique used to explore the cause-and-effect relationships underlying a particular problem. Source: Wikipedia, “Five whys”
2. 200 The underlying reason a problem exists Response: The root cause Root-cause analysis is often used in proactive management to identify the root cause of a problem, that is, the factor that was the leading cause. Source: Wikipedia, “Root-cause analysis”
3. 300 A small test used to learn before making a full change Response: A pilot A pilot experiment (also known as pilot study, pilot test, or pilot project) is a small-scale preliminary study conducted to evaluate feasibility, duration, cost, adverse events, and improve upon the study design prior to performance of a full-scale research project. Source: Wikipedia, “Pilot experiment”
4. 400 A possible explanation that can be tested Response: A hypothesis The scientific method involves experimentation to test the ability of some hypothesis to adequately answer the question under investigation. Source: Wikipedia, “Hypothesis”
5. 500 A meeting held after work to identify lessons and improvements Response: A retrospective The term is also used in software engineering, where a retrospective is a meeting held by a project team at the end of a project or process (often after an iteration) to discuss what was successful about the project or time period covered by that retrospective, what could be improved, and how to incorporate the successes and improvements in future iterations or projects. Source: Wikipedia, “Retrospective”

Team Habits

1. 100 Confidence that it is safe to speak up or admit a mistake Response: Psychological safety Psychological safety, as defined by Edmondson (1999), refers to an environment where individuals feel safe to express opinions, admit mistakes, and take risks without fear of ridicule or retribution. Source: Wikipedia, “Psychological safety”
2. 200 A clearly named person responsible for moving a task forward Response: An owner Worked out from the clue itself.
3. 300 A shared rule about how a team works together Response: A working agreement Worked out from the clue itself.
4. 400 The belief that another person will do what is expected Response: Trust Trust is the belief that another person will do what is expected and is built through repeated consistency. Source: Wikipedia, “Trust (social science)”
5. 500 A limit on work started but not yet finished Response: A work-in-progress limit To make sure this rule is followed Scrumban uses WIP (work in progress) limit. Source: Wikipedia, “Scrumban”

Clear Decisions

1. 100 The standard used to judge whether an option succeeds Response: A decision criterion Worked out from the clue itself.
2. 200 A choice that can be changed without major cost Response: A reversible decision Worked out from the clue itself.
3. 300 The person who makes the final call after input Response: The decision owner Worked out from the clue itself.
4. 400 A record of a choice and the reasoning behind it Response: A decision log Worked out from the clue itself.
5. 500 A date set to review whether a decision still works Response: A review date Worked out from the clue itself.

Final round: Team Learning

This meeting format asks what went well, what did not, and what the team will change. Response: A retrospective The term is also used in software engineering, where a retrospective is a meeting held by a project team at the end of a project or process (often after an iteration) to discuss what was successful about the project or time period covered by that retrospective, what could be improved, and how to incorporate the successes and improvements in future iterations or projects. Source: Wikipedia, “Retrospective”