Fist of Fives is a team voting technique which encourages openness and participation. It can be used as a temperature check to measure confidence or to get a read on how everyone is feeling. It draws out issues that can be fixed in time if used early in the Sprint.
How to Use:
Everyone uses their hand to vote - 5 fingers to completely agree, 1 finger to completely disagree.
Get 1's and 2's to express their concerns and re-vote if needed.
Let people know upfront whether you are actioning anything from the results or not.
Examples of use:
During a Daily Scrum by the Scrum Master for getting a read on the team of ‘How confident are you that we are on track to meet Sprint goal’
At the end of Retrospective to seek agreement on what issues and improvements on which to act
Used by a Product Owner when getting stakeholders to agree on a significant goal or objective
If you are wanting a Yes/No answer, do a similar exercise with Roman Voting instead.
If you are wanting to do group voting on lots of items, use Dot Voting instead.
For other facilitation tools and techniques, refer back to the Facilitation Techniques Index.
To see how you can use these techniques in your Scrum Events, refer to our Scrum Events Facilitation Tools article.
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