Sorting, prioritizing or ordering features and business
objectives (or tasks, or bugs, etc) with a large group of stakeholders can be
painful. Often the loudest voice in the room gets there way; some people just
sit in the corner too scared to raise their objections. After sitting through
many of these, I thought I’d post some ideas for improving the experience,
accuracy and interaction –
- Do a quick read through of all the items to set
the room to a common definition and understanding of the terms and items being
discussed
- Clearly post the definition of each scale on a
poster/whiteboard in clear view. If you are the moderator stand near it to
re-affirm the definitions during discussion
- People
can assign the boundary conditions quicker than the middle territory. Often a
quick pass through the list solely to assign the top rating or the bottom
rating (in, out, will, won’t, etc). This process also warms the group up and
gets the blood flowing. It is important that if there is ANY dissent, that item
be skipped
- The moderator should keep an eye on if someone
isn’t contributing and focus a question for opinion in that person’s direction
when the domain would suit (especially if it is an “obvious” yes or no). This
is also a way of making sure a dominant personality gets slowed down in driving
an agenda
- People get better at the process through
experience. At regular intervals, revisit a subset and ascertain the group
still feels the same way
- After each break (at least every 1 hour),
re-evaluate the last few items to “re-synch” people’s barometer. Depending on
the time of day or the day of the week (or the amount of caffeine here in
Seattle) – people can change their votes
The prioritization process is absolutely central to any
agile process. Making sure you get accurately reflected priorities with large
group can be very challenging.
Troy.