Is anonymous input in meetings really helpful?

Or is it a symptom of something else?

Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

Since the covid pandemic sent most of us out of the office and into remote working, team meetings have been primarily conducted over video conferencing tools.

Recently I have noticed that it is becoming more and more common for input to any online meeting, where the opinions of those attending is sought, to be anonymous. Some tools allow the host to choose whether the name of the person writing on the virtual whiteboard is shown or not, and I have noticed that more and more often, team leaders and Scrum Masters are choosing the mode that allows participants to write or vote anonymously.

The initial reasoning behind this is that it makes it safe for people to participate, to have a voice and to share an opinion without someone challenging it, or ridiculing it, or holding it against them later.

But let’s think about this a little deeper.

If I host — let’s say a retrospective — and invite participants to annotate on a whiteboard. I turn off the option to display names and text pops up on the screen. I cluster related items together and ask people to comment or elaborate on them, particularly ones I don’t fully understand.

Silence.