Retrospect it!A simple recipe for building fun Agile retrospectives

by Peti Morgan

A story about a moth

From the Agile manifesto:

At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly.

“I like them because stuff changes afterwards”

Barbara Gruber

Retrospective fatigueHave you noticed…

people are unfocusedthere is a lack of buy infollow through is badparticipation is poorthe insights gained are not useful

Make it interestingFollow a simple recipe, flavour as needed

OPEN IT ‘STORM IT FILTER IT ANALYSE IT (TO) DO IT CLOSE IT

Open itGoal: Get people involved and engaged in the first 5 minutes. Trigger memories about the sprint/cycle just been.

Ways to do it:

fist of five ESVP

weather report

quick question

temp reading

constellation three words

‘storm itGoal: Gather data from team members, so that we can choose good topics to talk about.

Ways to do it:

stop start change

mad sad glad

the 4 Ls peaks & valleys

draw a timeline hot air balloon speed boat

Filter itGoal: Identify the topics that the team would like to talk about.

Ways to do it:

dot vote

plus minus voting

round of applause

vote with your feet

circles in the soup

Analyse itGoal: Get to the root cause of the issue.

Ways to do it:

5 whys lean coffee

speed dating

written brainstorming

what would awesome look like? (And why aren’t we

there yet

(To) do itGoal: write up 2 or 3 SMART, owned actions to be resolved in the next sprint/cycle.

Ways to do it: by the team or verbatim.

Close itGoal: Sum up your actions, check for opportunities to improve your next retrospective.

Ways to do it: however you opened the retrospective, close it that way too.

There, you’ve done it!How can a retrospective be boring with this recipe?

OPEN IT ‘STORM IT FILTER IT ANALYSE IT (TO) DO IT CLOSE IT

Tips for facilitatorsBe neutral

Keep to time

Focus on what you can change

One or two things at once

Use sharpies

Post actions close to your board, check regularly

‘Park it’

Stay in the background

Further resourcesFun retrospectives: http://www.funretrospectives.com/Tasty Cupcakes: http://tastycupcakes.org/?s=retrospectives&x=0&y=0Retromat: http://plans-for-retrospectives.com/Retrospective Wiki: http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Retrospective_Plans

Recommended books/purchases

Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Esther Derby: http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649 Retromat in print format: http://plans-for-retrospectives.com/print/index.html Retrospective Coaching Cards: http://www.amazon.com/Retrospective-Coaching-Cards-Geoff-Watts/dp/0957587473/ Agile Kaizen: Managing Continuous Improvement Far Beyond Retrospectives by by Angel Medinilla: http://www.amazon.com/Agile-Kaizen-Continuous-Improvement-Retrospectives/dp/364254990X/

Retrospect it! by Peti Morgan is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Based on a work at https://medium.com/agile-software-development/retrospect-it-a-simple-recipe-for-building-fun-agile-retrospectives-144f4097a1d2.