Fast thenFaster

A Retrospectiveon Retrospectives

Dan Hardiker

Who is this guy?

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Dan HardikerCTO / Co-founder of AdaptavistCTO MentorDevoxx BE & UKDevoxx4KidsThe occasional roller disco at festivals

Passionate about teams and community

What? Why? Who? When?

What is it?

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A chance to step back and reflectA safe harbor

A barometer for the health of a teamCommunicationTransparencyEfficiencyReactiveness

A tool not just for teams, but also for HR!

Purpose of a Retrospective

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Foster a desire for improvementCulture of introspection

Increase empowermentReduce frustration

Who are they for?

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Not only for Scrum / Agile teamsUseful for any team that has a degree of autonomy / control over their processes

See “high performing teams”

Duration & Frequency

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It depends – teams should decide themselves based on:Rate, Size & Amount of ChangeExperience of the Team & Experience Working Together

30 minutes every other Sprint isn’t uncommon

The Rules

The Prime Directive

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"Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.”

Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Review

This is not about the blame game

Scope of a Retrospective

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Don’t dwell on things you can’t change / improveTake offline one offs you can’t plan for, or that are unlikely to reoccur

The focus should be the increment, but may also include:Code / FeaturesThe process itselfExternal Factors• E.g. support / distractions / micro management

Change has to be positive - posit questions positivelyWhat went well? What could we do better?What was useful? What could be more useful?

Doing it wrong

Bad Retrospectives

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Dominating PersonalitiesAvoid senior people driving the conversationWatch out for experience being used as a privilege

Dismissing OpinionsAssume every suggestion is valid before dismissingFairly consider everything, watch out for bias

Exclusive FormatsDon’t get stuck in a routineSupport different ways of communicating• Verbal, PostIt, Email, Proxied

How to Reduce the Value

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Rush themUndermine the importanceFew people participatingNeglecting the outputIdle participation

You should get out as much as you put in

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Flickr photo by Donnie Ray Jones

Get upset!

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Power up!

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LeadershipTime to make yourself redundant

DiversityTeam mixMix it up, rotate roles

Power up!

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Break BoundariesBe uncomfortable

Fail is OKThink about the impact of failureIf it always works, you rest assured

Power up!

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Hold retrospectives on retrospectives!Leave a short amount at the end of each retrospective to discuss the retrospective process itself

Power up!

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Are we nearly there yet?Never!Good enough is the enemy, when pursuing perfection!

How can your next sprint be better?

Questions

References

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http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=The_Prime_Directivehttps://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2014/april/key-elements-of-sprint-retrospectivehttps://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/december/retrospective-the-fun-way

Thanks!@adaptavist / @dhardiker