What Subjects Should We Cover at a Team Kickoff or Re-Baseline Event?

It is often useful to have a Team kick-off session for the Team. The Team Kick-off Session is a half to full day event, potentially spread over a couple of days, with all Team members in attendance. While it helps that some people involved have at least some background in Agile roles, events, and practices, this is not a requirement for the meeting. The Team can learn as it goes.

The core agenda for the Team Kick-off Session is:

• (Optional) Agile Manifesto: Refresh yourselves on the Agile Values and Principles. Do we remember the basics? (See Agile Values and Principles for more information).
• Scrum or Kanban Values and Principles: Refresh yourselves on the Scrum Kanban Values and Principles. Are we making informed decisions around our implementation of Scrum and / or Kanban? (See Scrum Values and Principles and Kanban Values and Principles for more information)
• Team Name: What is the identity of the Team?
• Team Vision: Establish the Team Vision. What is the purpose of this Team? Why is it together? Who are the Customers?
• Team Roles: Understand the named Scrum roles and name someone to fill it on the Team:
  • Scrum Master
  • Product Owner
• Team Events: Review Scrum Team events, understand their purpose and determine how to address that purpose. Determine your overall Team timetable going forward:
  • Daily Standup
  • Planning
  • Refinement]
  • Retrospective
  • Review
• Team Skills: What skills are required to deliver value? What skills do we have? How is your team building T-shape people?
• Team Kanban: Discuss how work flows through the Team and determine the Team Kanban board:
  • States (Develop, test, etc.)
  • Exit agreements for each state
  • Service levels swim lanes (based on type of work – standard, expedite, fixed date, etc.)
  • Initial WIP limits for each state
• General Team working agreements: What are the agreements we are going to put in place to help us interact and become a successful Team? (See What Kind of Working Agreements Should We Set Up for the Team? for more information)
• Determine or update the Team Definition of Done
• (Optional) User Stories: Review definition of User Stories Help the Team understand the outcome of the work they do from the perspective of the customer by putting themselves in their shoes.
• Team Backlog: Build your initial Team Backlog. Based on Product Owner’s view of current priorities and work that is currently in-flight from Team members.
  • For each item in the backlog ensure you record the swim lane (service level agreement) each work item is expected to be placed in.
  • For inflight items in the backlog, ensure you record the state. New items are assumed to be place in the first colomn.
• (Optional) Story Points: Review story point estimation based on relative sizes.
• Estimate: The size of work. Get to a common understanding of the effort required to get something through the Kanban states
• Prioritize the Team Backlog
• Determine what the Team will be working on