• RetrospectiveTechniques

Some techniques useful for IntrospectionAndRetrospectives.

Outline

Advance preparation

• If an outside facilitator, interview participants ahead of time.
• Ask "the attendees to become high-tech archaeologists and search their office for important artifacts related to their project." [Kerth]

Setting the Stage

• Understand what a retrospective is, and is not.
• Get mentally present and ready to do the work [Larsen]
• Quick Checkin (in an ongoing series of retrospectives)
  • Choose one word to describe the previous iteration

  • Chris Hedgate's Doodle Checkin (http://www.hedgate.net/articles/2009/04/16/retrospective-exercise-doodle-checkin/)

  • Diana Larsen's "select a photo (from a collection of magazine photos) that reflects the iteration and say why you selected it." (http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/retrospectives/message/1521)

    • See also Kris Blake's http://theagileleap.blogspot.com/2009/04/retrospective-agenda-high-performing.html

  • Terry Weigman's "select a tabloid headline" (http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/retrospectives/message/1523)

  • Simon Roberts' Cartoon story board

Creating safety

• Prime Directive

  • 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 James Shore recommends asking each participant individually for verbal acceptance of the Prime Directive.

• Secret ballots to measure sense of safety, at the beginning and after establishing rules.
  1. I'll just keep my mouth shut
  2. I'll agree with whatever the group says
  3. I'll discuss the non-controversial topics
  4. I'll discuss almost anything
  5. I'm willing to talk about anything
• Establish ground rules
  • We will try not to interrupt.
  • We will accept everyone's opinion without judgment.
  • We will talk from our own perspective, and not speak for anyone else.
  • There will be no jokes about other people in the room.
  • These ground rules can be amended after any break.
• Consider splitting into natural-affinity groups (e.g., managers and developers) to reduce duplication or enhance safety.
• Talking Stick

Objective level - Gathering Data - What?

• Timeline [Kerth] [Derby-notes]
• Use burn-down chart for timeline
• Artifacts Exercise [Kerth] -- Display the artifacts collected ahead of time
• Collect list of memorable events that were enjoyable, frustrating, or puzzling. [Shore]
• Think of things you'd like to see increase, decrease, and remain the same. [Shore]

• FRIM (FRequence/IMpact) [Larsen] description and update

• Values Activity maps events to values. [Larsen]

• Wind in the sails metaphor [Jean Tabaka, reported by Esther Derby]

• Brain-writing exercise Simon Roberts to help gather everyone's thoughts

• Breaking into small groups is another effective technique for drawing out the quiet ones.

Selection

• Dumb Mapping (10 minutes) [Shore]
  • Categorize and group
  • Vote (dots) on most important

Reflective level - Gut?

• Mining the Timeline for Gold Exercise [Kerth]
  • "We worked through the whole project, looking for what worked well, what lessons were learned, what could be done differently next time, and what topics needed more detailed study." [Kerth]

    • "The 4 Key Questions" [Kerth]

      1. What did we do well, that if we don’t discuss we might forget?
      2. What did we learn?
      3. What should we do differently next time?
      4. What still puzzles us?
• Define Success Exercise [Kerth]
  • measures of success
    • How does the team feel?
    • Compared to industry norms
    • another definition of success: "At the end of a successful project, everybody says, "Gee, I wish we could do it again." [Kerth]

  • also Pete Deemer's story

• Simon Roberts' seismograph relating timeline to mood. See also: Energy seismograph

• David Bland's SaMoLo short subject exercise

Interpretive level - Generating Insight - So what?

Decisional level - Decide what to do - Now what?

• Cross-Affinity Teams Exercise [Kerth]
  • "reviewed, organized and prioritized the topics that needed more detailed study"
  • study their assigned problem from many perspectives
  • look for a number of possible solutions
  • develop a proposal

Uncategorized

• Offer Appreciations Exercise [Kerth]
• Session without Managers Exercise [Kerth]
  • Developers' message to Managers; Managers' message to Developers
• Repair Damage through Play Exercise [Kerth]
• Making the Magic Happen Exercise [Kerth]
  • watching the process and guiding it, providing opportunities for all to be heard, and respecting everyone's opinions and privacy;
  • helping the group work under guidelines that yield healthy human interactions;
  • being willing to work with emotions as they came up.
• Appreciative Inquiry [Davies-jiggling]
• Rich Pictures [Davies-jiggling]

• Patrick Kua's Three Word Starter is offered as an alternative safety exercise, but seems more like a temperature reading to me.

• Ilja Preuss' Lightweight Appreciative Retrospection

• James Brett's Sprint Retrospectives and their Formats has some nice suggestions

  • outline the retrospective format, set ground rules and agree on a retrospective goal
  • Review previous retrospective action plans
  • Energy seismograph
  • Generate insight: a learning matrix, divided into quadrants: Positive, Negative, Ideas, Appreciations.
  • Decide what to do
  • Return On Time Invested (ROTI) poll.
    1. Useless – I gained nothing from the meeting
    2. It was useful but it wasn’t worth 100% of the time spent on it
    3. Average I gained enough to justify the time spent in the meeting
    4. Above average, I gained more than the time spent on the meeting
    5. Excellent, A really useful meeting that benefits the team and myself and worth more than the time spent on it.

• Rob Bowley's Retrospective Wiki collects a number of exercises, including a list of retrospective plans.

• Sumeet Moghe's World Cafe Retrospective seems useful for a somewhat large group.

• William Wake's Patterns for Iteration Retrospectives

References

• [Kerth] http://www.retrospectives.com/pages/Anatomy.html

• [Derby-notes] Notes on Retrospectives from my open session at Better Software Conference

• [Derby-scrum] 7 Ways to Revitalize Your Sprint Retrospectives

• [Shore] http://www.jamesshore.com/Agile-Book/retrospectives.html

• [Davies-jiggling] Jiggling Retrospective Formats

• [Larsen] 5 parts of a retrospective (near end of message)