attended the Agile Product Owners and Business Analysts Meetup Group last night.
The presenter cancelled at the last minute. Since I was the only co-organiser present, I stepped in to run the session.
Since I did not have a presentation prepared I took a leaf out of the Unconference playbook and sourced the topic material from the audience.
- Everything is High Priority
- Distributed Agile
Everything is High Priority
Most of the solutions shared by attendees focused on avoiding the idea of priorities altogether. Some of the strategies included:
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Using Ranking – Forcing a strict order without allowing ties in priority.
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Using Defaults – Proposing your own priority order and proceeding with it unless you receive feedback.
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Using Business Value – Prioritising based on estimated business impact.
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Using Business Value divided by Estimated Time – To identify “low-hanging fruit.”
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Using Risk – Prioritising items that carry the most uncertainty or unknowns.
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Controlling the size of the backlog – Keeping the ranked list small and manageable.
Distributed Agile
Many attendees had experience working in distributed teams.
The most common challenge was dealing with time zones—especially when working hours didn’t overlap or had only minimal overlap.
There was general agreement that a digital Kanban board (or similar tool) was essential for tracking work.
Attendees also felt that occasional face-to-face contact was important.
Sharing the burden of after-hours meetings fairly was another key point, to ensure no sub-team felt like second-class members.
It was also noted that all sub-teams must clearly understand both the Agile process and the reasons behind it. Otherwise, there’s a risk of Agile being seen as just another management trend, especially if it’s imposed top-down without proper context or explanation.
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