How to Prepare for (and Follow-up on) Scrum Meetings

When using Scrum and GitHub Project Boards to manage work on projects, it’s tempting to forget actually preparing and following-up on meetings. Sol here are our tips to make meetings as effective as possible.

Prepare the meeting

• Ensure that all the issues that are completed are moved to the “Done” section.
• If you have a follow-up question/tasks on an issue you have moved to “Done”, make sure to add a comment to that issue. This can be done by clicking on the issue and on the button “Go to issue for full details” that appears in the right column of your screen.
• Close any issues that have no further follow-up questions. Do not archive the issue, yet!
• Make sure that you know the status of all the issues you have moved to the “In Progress” section.

During the meeting

• The issues that are set to “Done” should be discussed first.
• Then discuss the issues set to “In Progress” and “To Do”. Make a quick note of any relevant tasks that are discussed during the meeting in the “Backlog” section. You will revise these quick notes after the meeting.
• Together with the team members, discuss which issues from the “Backlog” should be worked on during the next sprint.

After the meeting

• Move all the issues that are set to “Done” and require further discussion to be done. Make sure you add notes that specify the follow-up tasks you need to complete.
• Archive all the issues that are set to “Done” and do not require further attention.
• Rewrite all the quick notes you have taken during the meetings, transform them into issues, and link the associated repository to the issue. Be thorough in renaming the issues so that you understand what needs to be done. If necessary, break the note down into smaller issues. You could also categorize all your issues with labels to better manage the project.
• Move the issues you need to work on during the upcoming sprint into the “To Do” section (either the follow-up actions, or new items from the “Backlog”).
• Prioritize the issues by dragging them up or down the list.

You’re now ready to start working on your next sprint!