Every sprint begins with a planning activity. This is when the Scrum team decides on the work to be done in the iteration ahead.

Sprint planning is divided into two parts.

During the first part user stories are analyzed, evaluated and estimated. After that, the developers determine a reasonable workload that they think they can commit to.

During the second part, selected stories are analyzed in more detail by the developers (remember, I use the term developer for everyone building the product, including coders, designers, testers, documenters, and so on).

The final article in the series about the Pomodoro Technique® and Scrum covers objective VI: Other Possible Objectives which, I admit, is a bit fuzzy.

One goal of Scrum is to continuously improve. This is formalized in the sprint retrospective. Identifying and implementing potential improvements is part of the agenda, and second nature to agile practitioners.

Nothing is more annoying than unproductive meetings. Some things irritate me in particular: people answering phone calls, people working on their laptops, and off-topic discussions.

You would think it goes without saying that you don’t do these things in meetings. However, it doesn’t seem to be so natural. Hmm… Come to think of it, I might be guilty of the last one myself occasionally.

So, you have planned the meeting. The purpose is clear. You distributed the agenda. You know the dos and don’ts of effective meetings. Then you're all set, right?

I recently participated in a meeting that went so far off-track we needed a map and compass to get back to the office. This led to a discussion with the conclusion that we needed to have shorter, more focused meetings. It's a nice thought, but it won't happen unless the following two preconditions are met.

In a previous post, I discussed how to conduct effective meetings. However, if you repeatedly find yourself in inefficient meetings, you need strategies to deal with it.

Although this can be difficult, obviously you should first try to change the meetings culture of your company. In the meanwhile, or as a last resort, consider the following four ways to deal with ineffective meetings.

Have you ever found yourself in a room with people discussing the internal test server’s footer size, or some other similarly insignificant detail? Making things worse, did you go to the meeting because you thought you were finally going to make a decision about that business proposition that could make or break the company?