Sync rounds

To ensure collaboration within our teams, the right people on the right level should regularly talk to each other. Therefore, team sync rounds are in place. Their primary focus is on ongoing product development and potential blockers. All other team-related topics are secondary but can be discussed in this format as well.

The main artifacts of a sync round are the company backlog and the respective team backlogs deriving from it.

Escalating blockers (and other important topics): if a sync round does not know who the right person is to escalate an issue to, it's the coaches obligation to escalate it to the next higher round.

Team sync rounds (TSR)

  • Consists of PO/PM, coach, and engineering manager
  • Syncs about topics on epic level, team workflow, and drives team-internal collaboration
  • Syncs on feasibility regarding the team's quarterly plan, collaborates in planning a team's next quarter
  • Connects with and involves all necessary people (e.g. data, stakeholders, architects) to succeed in making their epics reality

Shop sync round

  • Consists of the leads for product, design, coaching, shop engineering, and data analytics & measurement
  • Has an eye on cross-team dependencies and drives cross-team collaboration to resolve them, i.e. bringing the right people together and updating the right people
  • Tackles blockers and issues arsing within an initiative, escalates those that cannot be resolved directly to the company sync round

Company sync round

  • Consists of the directors for product, data, tech, and organization
  • Is responsible for the all-over development process, the team members involved, and the outcome released
  • Is the escalation point for all blockers and issues that cannot be resolved by the other sync rounds