Item — HN Reader

Others have suggested a talking stick, and I'll improve on that - a talking stick + timer. Because you need to enforce both 1 person talking at time, and time box them.

Even better, you make the timer be the talking stick. Every time you hand off the timer, you reset it for the next person. They say their piece and reset/handoff to the next person.

I've done this for daily standups/sprint meetings where things were getting out of control, it works well.

2 comments

You propose a valid technical solution. Sadly it involves infrastructure and ceremony. I would think it preferable to grow the social skills of the team so that these aren't required.

Sometimes it involves infrastructure and ceremony to grow the social skills of a group (church, school, team sports, board games, etc :)

Usually the team learns from the tools and the tools naturally stop being used when they are no longer needed.

Reminds me of when I worked in a big finance company in London. We had a talking rubber fish. It worked well until a particularly aggressive manager just grabbed the fish and threw it across the room and continued to shout at all his staff.. It was a great slapstick moment!