Today, one of the biggest problems in distributed teams or teams working on a complex domain is the replication of context and concepts among team members. It’s very common for implementation discussions to become lengthy and unnecessary, partly due to the fact that some team members may not have all the necessary context or understand the same concept in different ways.

Have you ever been in a meeting where the first part was just a discussion to get everyone on the same page, and throughout the meeting, someone had to constantly refer back to what had been “agreed upon” as context?

“Well, this is really bad, but how can someone grasp the context without working on something?”

The Discussion Corner

Let’s start by defining what a Discussion Corner is:

It’s a meeting that lasts no more than 1 hour and is divided into 3 stages. This meeting should not have more than 10 participants to encourage active participation from everyone.

Introduction of the topic to be discussed

The person chosen to facilitate this meeting presents the topic to be discussed. It’s important to emphasize that the ultimate goal of this meeting is for everyone to understand the concept and context in which that technology is used. Let’s try a practical example:

“Today we’re going to talk about Day-0 Observability, what it means, and when you should apply this strategy.”

The expectation is that, by the end of the conversation, everyone will understand the concept and know in which context it applies.

Defining the concept and discussing context

The facilitator should then present the basic concept and allow participants to ask questions. It’s important in this stage for the facilitator not to try to take over the conversation and impose their own definition. Instead, encourage people to discuss among themselves and reach a consensus. It’s important to keep this conversation from dragging on for too long, allocating around 15 to 20 minutes for people to discuss the concept itself. Some questions can help facilitate the conversation:

“How would you explain the concept of Day-0 Observability to someone new?”

“Does anyone want to refine the mentioned concept?”

“To move the discussion forward, who can summarize in one sentence what has been said?”

Once the concept is defined, it’s time to discuss the context. If the concept is “what is it?” then the context is “how is it used?”

In this stage, it’s crucial to try to avoid talking about specific technologies. Forget about vendors and frameworks; focus solely on use cases, best practices, and experiences related to the topic.

Agreement about the concept and context

As the facilitator, write down the concept somewhere visible to everyone and start discussing in which context it applies. In the initial interactions of this exercise, it’s common for people to have difficulty shifting from discussing the concept to discussing the context. Some key questions can be very helpful:

“How can we increase the adoption of the concept we discussed earlier?”

“In which cases does the above concept not apply at all?”

“What would be the golden path for everyone to use this concept?”

This way, participants are forced to spend time discussing the application of the concept.

At the end of the discussion, the facilitator should summarize the conversation, repeat the concept and its usage context. Always keep these discussions documented for future reference.

Conclusion

Throughout the Discussion Corner, active participation and collaboration among team members are encouraged. The facilitator ensures that the conversation remains focused, productive, and solution-oriented. A summary of the discussion, including the defined concept and its contextual application, is documented for future reference, fostering knowledge retention and facilitating ongoing collaboration within the team.

In summary, the Discussion Corner is a purposeful meeting format that promotes shared understanding, effective communication, and knowledge exchange, leading to enhanced team cohesion and improved implementation outcomes in distributed teams or complex domains.