<aside> <img src="/icons/list-indent_gray.svg" alt="/icons/list-indent_gray.svg" width="40px" /> The Sync Event

• Duration

• Participants

• Components

• 1toAll components

• The Open Space

• Pre and post-event

• Organising team

• Logistics - in person

• Logistics - Remote

• Example agenda </aside>

The Sync Event is about having meaningful discussions. Time spent in the Sync Event needs to be useful to everyone. Even better if it is perceived as useful.

Time boxing is the best tool to focus the communication at the event. You need to be creative in finding ways to cram more interactions into a shorter time.

Organised information exchange

Domain areas and topics of interest

Every person and team will have a range of topics they are interested in. The Sync Event needs to ruthlessly restrict the scope of the information shared to encompass the overlap of all those interests, plus a little bit more. This lets everyone learn something about other people’s domain areas. However, going too far beyond, towards non-shared domain interests will decrease engagement and create waste.

Remember the Sync Event is not limited by how much information can be offered, especially if you have a large value stream. It is limited by how much information can be absorbed. This is a constant, independent of how big your organisation is, which means the more teams involved, the less information should be irradiated.

Serendipitous discussions

Everyone is at the Sync Event and they have no other purpose in that time apart from communicating with each other. It is the perfect occasion to have discussions we did not know we needed to have. To facilitate these, you need to set aside time without other pressures.

To optimise, try:

• Seeding information before a break or lunch
• Protecting the time immediately after the event from recurrent meetings
• Having an open space with parallel sessions: a default component of the Sync Event

Choosing a duration

Longer iterations will require a longer event. As a rule of thumb:

• 0.5 - 1 day for a quarterly iteration cadence
• 2 - 4 hours for a six-week iteration cadence

If these seem short, remember that time is the most precious commodity you have. As SIS designers, your objective is making the most of every minute of interaction. The 80-20 rule applies.

To optimise, push context setting, planning and uninteresting detail outside of the sync event. Make it a truly special and valued event for your value stream. Make it shorter and shorter until you see feedback requesting to make it longer.

<aside> ℹ️ Once you have established SIS and everyone knows what to expect for a standard Sync Event, we highly recommend trying the half time experiment. Design a Sync Event restricted to half the usual time. Try it and see what you can learn!

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