Example data. Fieldnote is a fictional company used to fill all 61 boards, so the examples tell one consistent story.
Scale-up Fieldnote with three squads (Field app, Office web, Integrations) and the data analyst: the offline mode and the Pennylane integration both slipped because of what each squad was waiting for.
What the team took away
Six of the nine arrows land on the Field app squad in sprints 1 and 2. They swap the parts scan feature for sprint 4 and clear the model freeze first.
How to run it
Preparation
One representative per team, with authority to commit dates. Send the next quarter's objectives per team 3 days before.
Ask each rep to arrive with a list of what their team needs from others, with a wanted-by date.
Prepare the grid with teams as both rows and columns. Rows give, columns receive.
Agenda
10 min
Rules of the grid Explain the reading: the cell at row A, column B is what A must deliver to B. One sticky per dependency, with a date.
20 min
Write your needs Each rep writes what their team needs from every other team, in the receiving column. Silent, 20 minutes.
40 min
Confirm or contest Walk the grid team by team. The giving team says yes with a date, or no with a reason. Mark disputed cells in red.
20 min
Find the crossings Look for pairs where A waits for B and B waits for A. Each crossing is a risk: name it and pick one of the two to go first.
30 min
Escalate and close List the red cells nobody can settle in the room. Assign each to a named person with a 48-hour deadline. Photograph the grid.
Pitfalls
Do not accept a dependency without a date. 'Sometime in Q3' will slip to Q4.
Refuse reps who cannot commit. If the tech lead sends a delegate who must check with them, the grid is fiction.
Do not try to resolve every red cell in the room. Two hours is for mapping. Resolution happens in the 48-hour follow-up.
Afterwards
The grid becomes the dependency row of the program board, or a standing item in the weekly sync. Revisit it every sprint: dependencies that keep reappearing point to a team boundary that needs to move.