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The drive to inspect and adapt is one of the most important aspects of agile software development. A great way to bake this approach into your process is by having regular retrospective meetings that engage and challenge the team to solve their own problems and make things better. However, these meetings can be difficult to run well and drive improvement. In fact, many teams sleepwalk through sessions, treating them as a box-ticking exercise that signals the end of the iteration. Maybe it’s time we tried a bit harder to make sprint retrospective meetings work? In this workshop, Chris explained how to put together an awesome sprint retrospective. Attendees tried novel activities that can be used to gather information and challenge team members to consider problems from a new angle.
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The Art of the RetrospectiveGE Cambridge
Thursday, 20 February 2014
Chris Smith and Paul Stephenson
The Art of the RetrospectiveWhat can go wrong with sprint retrospectives and how to fix them
GE CambridgeThursday, 20 February 2014
Chris Smith and Paul Stephenson
Chris SmithProject Manager
Paul StephensonProject Manager
Introductions
What is a Retrospective Meeting?
“Special meeting that takes place at the end of a period of work – usually an iteration or software release.In a retrospective, a team steps back, examines the way they work, analyses and identifies ways they can improve” Esther Derby
ContinuousImpro
veme
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Inspect and adapt: What we develop
We will always know more
than we know here
ReleaseRelease
ReleaseRelease
Release
Inspect and adapt: How we work
We will always know more about how we work together on the project than we know
here
RetrospectiveRetrospective
RetrospectiveRetrospective
Retrospective
Retrospectives can be perfunctory
Retrospectives can be unpopular
Retrospectives can be unpopular
My team are literally allergic to the word ‘Retrospective’
Retrospectives can be unpopular
My team talk to each other and we fix things when they come up (you idiot)
Retrospectives can be unpopular
My team/project is special because [reason], so we don’t do retrospectives
So…
“Let’s not bother”or worse
“Let’s continue ticking the box”
Retrospectives can be transformative
Inspecting and adapting through
retrospectives
How do you run an effective and engaging Sprint Retrospective?
References
Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (Derby and Larsen)
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers (Gray, Brown and Macanufo)
How do you run an effective and engaging Sprint Retrospective?
• Prepare well• Deliberately facilitate• Keep to Retrospective Framework• Vary activities• Create good actions
Prepare Well
• Invest time• Decide focus &
agenda• Gather people,
help, materials, snacks
Deliberately Facilitate
• Clear & confident• Aware• Don’t contribute
(too much)
Keep to the Retrospective Framework
‘Heinz 57 Varieties’ by Pat C. Klein
Vary retrospective activities
Set the stage
Choose a ‘Goldilocks’ goal
Too closed Too open Just right
Find ways to improve our physical work environment?
Check-in
Everyone answers a question in one or two words:
How was the sprint for you?What is on your mind right now?
Activity
Check-in
How is your physical office environment?
Activity
Check-inActivity
Set the stage: Other activities
• Focus On/Focus Off• Explorer, Shopper, Vacationer,
Prisoner• Desert Island
Gather data
Pair Interviews
• Pair-up, each person to interview the other• Not a conversation; encourage interviewees to
keep to the role• Pose a question like “What were the high and
low points of this sprint?”• Report back
Activity
Activity
Pair Interviews
• Interview about satisfaction with physical work environment this year
• Interviewer, ask:– when the person felt most satisfied?– why was is satisfying?– when the person felt least satisfied?– why was is dissatisfying?
• Three minutes to interview, then we swap
Activity
Activity
Other activities to gather data
• Team Poll• Timeline• Short Subjects– Mad/Sad/Glad– Stop/Start/Continue
• Learning Matrix• Like to Like card game
Generate insights
Mission Impossible
Take an existing challenge/goal and change a fundamental aspect that makes it seem impossible
Activity
“How do we remove all our technical debt… in a day?”“How do we add a feature… without writing any code?”
Mission Impossible
How do we turn your office into the perfect environment…
in 24 hours?
Activity
Other activities to generate insights
• Fishbone diagram• Force Field Analysis• Challenge Cards• De Bono’s 6 Thinking Hats• Flip it• Anti-problem• Pre-Mortem
Decide what to do
• Each person has paper divided into ~4 sections• Idea added in 1st section • Paper passed to next person who builds on idea
Brain-writingActivity
Given what you have heard and seen, what should you do?
Brain-writingActivity
Prioritize what to do
Activities to prioritize:• Dot voting• £100 Test• Absolute order• Personal commitment
Action creation tips
Not sure exactly what to tackle?Arrange an experiment
Action creation tips
Not sure how to make a mind-set or direction change actually happen?Introduce an artefact or activity
Action creation tips
Team seems unsure or noncommittal?Measure with ‘Five-Fingered Consensus’
Close the retrospective
Close the retrospective: Feedback wall
Activity
Structuring a retrospective
How do you run an effective and engaging Sprint Retrospective?
• Prepare well• Deliberately facilitate• Keep to Retrospective Framework• Vary activities• Create good actions
ReferencesAgile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (Derby and Larsen)
Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers (Gray, Brown and Macanufo)
http://www.plans-for-retrospectives.com/http://retrospectivewiki.org/
