A quiet moment before the planning wheel spins

It was one of those moments in sprint planning where the air gets a bit thick. We had a few different paths we could take, and everyone was just looking at the board, waiting for someone to make the call. I remember glancing around the room, seeing the slight tilt of a head, the way someone was tapping their pen. It wasn't about right or wrong; it was about finding a neutral place to start.

When the options feel equally valid

We had debated the merits of each approach for a good ten minutes. The technical lead made a solid case, the product owner had a different priority, and the developers were split. The energy was starting to shift from collaborative to just a little bit stuck. No one was being difficult, but we were circling the same points.That's when I pulled up the spin wheel on the shared screen. It wasn't a magic solution, but it changed the posture in the room almost immediately. The tension of having to 'win' the argument just dissolved. We were all looking at the same set of options, now stripped of their attached advocacies.

The spin that settled the air

I asked for a volunteer to give it a click. There was a brief, almost silly pause before someone did. We watched the wheel spin, a blur of color and text, and for a second, it was just a game. Then it slowed, landed on one of the items, and stopped.And that was it. We all looked at the result, and there was this collective, quiet acceptance. The decision was made for us, transparently and without bias. The discussion that followed wasn't about whether it was the right choice, but about how we'd make it work. The dynamic completely shifted.

What the wheel held for us

The items weren't complex. They were just the different starting points we'd been talking about, phrased simply. Seeing them listed out like that, separate from our voices, made them feel more like tools than territories.