I had been sitting in a few team retrospectives and hearing the same old tired pattern of "what went well, what didn't, what can we improve". The teams were bored, I was bored, they were just doing mechanical Scrum. Retrospectives are such a powerful tool to drive continuous improvement, but what i was seeing was a stagnation and the true value of this event was being lost.
End of the Sprint was coming up so as the enterprise agile coach, I thought I'd provide some of my favourite patterns and ended up providing my 20 Scrum Masters with a playbook to accelerate and reinvigorate learning and improvement, retrospectives and ideas as well as links to where to find more.
Would love to share these patterns with you, discuss the pain points we were experiencing and how we were able to reinvigorate this event and improve overall quality of our delivery. It will be a workshop so would also love to hear your favourite patterns so we can share them with the group in this workshop and help inspire our teams to strive for activating real improvements.
More details:
https://confengine.com/agile-india-2019/proposal/8084/accelerate-improvements-through-retrospectives
Conference link: https://2019.agileindia.org
SaaStr Workshop Wednesday w/ Lucas Price, Yardstick
Accelerate Improvements through Retrospectives by Mia Horrigan at #AgileIndia2019
1. Accelerate Through Retrospectives
An easy tool Agile teams use for fast paced learning and early course correction
Here’s why you should use it, too.
Agile India 2019
Mia Horrigan
page
01
Special thanks to Victoria Schiffer - https://www.slideshare.net/Erdbeervogel/accelerate-through-retrospectives-activate-agile-agile-australia-2018
Mia Horrigan@zenexmachina.com
Blog – www.zenexmachina.wordpress.com
Twitter - @miahorri
www.zenexmachina.com
4. page
04
“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
Retrospective Prime Directive
No Blame!
No Judgement!
Psychological
Safety!
Growth Mindset!
7. page
07
Too often
retrospectives
are painful,
boring or a
waste of time
What well well?
What didn’t go well?
Improvments?
Fight the rise of Zombie Scrum
• No beating heart
• No desire for
outside contact
• No emotional
response to
success or failure
• No desire to
improve
12. page
012
6 Thinking
Hats
Team discuss the
Sprint wearing one
of De Bono’s ”hats”
Think about the
Sprint from another’s
perspective
http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=6_Thinking_Hats_Retrospective
15. page
015
Mix it Up !
Use different
words and
drawings to
challenge and
surprise
https://agilestrides.com/2017/09/25/40-ideas-to-spice-up-your-retrospective/
17. page
017
The Fast and
the Furious
● Fast
● Furious
● Fun(ny)
● First
● Fantastic
http://tastycupcakes.org/2018/01/the-fast-and-the-furious-and-other-fs-retrospective-activity/
20. page
020
Snakes and
Ladders
• Snakes =
impediments
teams faced
during the
Sprint
• Ladder =
good
practices
start doing
http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Snakes_and_Ladders
22. page
022
High ROTI –
continue doing
Low ROTI -
identified for
change and
improvement
ROTI –
Return on
Time
Invested
https://www.amazon.com.au/Agile-Retrospectives-Making-Teams-Great/dp/0977616649
23. page
023
List all the
knowledge and
skills your
team
Add actions to
move to the other
quadrant - eg
move from we
know that we
don´t know to
we know that
we know Know we Know
Didn’t know we know
Didn’t know we didn’t know
Know we Don’t Know
http://www.funretrospectives.com/understanding-the-group-knowledge/
25. page
025
Appreciate
Retrospective
Start a Kudos
card Wall in your
team area
Make sure you
have at least
one card for
each team
member
http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Appreciative_Retrospective
Thank You
Great Job
Wow, that worked
well
That’s Awesome
26. page
026
Play a Game
Cards against
Agility
Develop
awareness
and/or phave
fun with Agile
practices
https://tastycupcakes.org/2017/02/cards-against-agility/
27. page
027
Candy Love
Share something
according to the
candy colour
• Red - What you love
about your work
• Yellow – Life goal
• Brown – Favourite movie
or pastime
• Orange - something
about your job you like
• Blue – Best part of the
sprint
http://www.funretrospectives.com/candy-love/
28. page
028
Spiderweb
Talk about what
abilities are
important to an
Agile team
How your team
rates against
them?
http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Pillars_Of_Agile_Spiderweb_Retrospective
30. page
030
Futurespective
Look forward 12
months and
describe what that
looks like
• Attitudes
• Behaviours
• Culture
Ask them what
Enablers are
needed to get there:
• People
• Technology
• Process
31. page
031
Postcards from
the Future
Team members to
write a postcard
from the end of the
next Sprint to
capture what they
would like to see
happen in the future
Sprint
Review them at end
of Sprint
http://www.funretrospectives.com/letters-to-the-future/
34. page
034
LEGO®
Retrospective
Ask everyone to
build an animal
with 8 LEGO®
bricks to represent
how they are
feeling.
Share with group
Problem
http://www.funretrospectives.com/lego-retrospective/
Alternate pattern – use
LEGO® to describe the
Sprint
35. page
035
Weather/
Seasons
Ask people to put a
sticky note on the
weather/season
that represents the
last sprint
Discuss especially
when some people
feeling Sunny and
some feeling like
Rain
https://agilestrides.com/2017/09/25/40-ideas-to-spice-up-your-retrospective/
37. page
037
Workshop
Share your favourite
Retro patterns
Write up your pattern
on a chart
Feedback to the Group
Collect the patterns and
Share
http://www.funretrospectives.com/happiness-radar-3-ls-dot-voting/
15 Mins
39. page
039
Bubble Up
Think back and
note significant or
memorable events,
highs and lows
Analyse to
Identify team
improvements
Bubble up and
escalate program
impediments
http://agile.2ia.net/Agile%20Retrospectives.pdf
40. page
040
What happened
When did it take
place
Where did it take
place
Who was involved
Why did it happen
http://agile.2ia.net/Agile%20Retrospectives.pdf
41. page
041
Fishbone –
Root cause
Look past
symptoms to
identify root
causes
Look for ways
they can make
changes or
influence those
factors.
Problem
http://agile.2ia.net/Agile%20Retrospectives.pdf
Inspection (people, process and tools) and Adaption (how team does its work)
Improvement can be implemented directly into the next Sprint
Safe environment for Team to share failures and learn from them
Honest, open and transparent
Inspection (people, process and tools) and Adaption (how team does its work)
Improvement can be implemented directly into the next Sprint
Safe environment for Team to share failures and learn from them
Honest, open and transparent
Inspection (people, process and tools) and Adaption (how team does its work)
Improvement can be implemented directly into the next Sprint
Safe environment for Team to share failures and learn from them
Honest, open and transparent
Inspection (people, process and tools) and Adaption (how team does its work)
Improvement can be implemented directly into the next Sprint
Safe environment for Team to share failures and learn from them
Honest, open and transparent
Fast: things that went very fast
Furious: things that made you furious
Fun(ny): things that were fun or funny
First: things that you experienced the first time
Fantastic: things that delivered value
We know that we know – it is clear that we have this knowledge
we didn´t know that we know – the knowledge existed but it was not clear to group.
we didn´t know that we don´t know – no one was aware of it.
we know that we don´t know– knowledge does not exist within the group, but we were aware of it.
Strategic planning for a new Initiative
Ask the team to look forward 12 months and describe what that looks like from three perspectives:
Attitudes
Behaviours
Culture
Then ask them what Enablers are needed to get there:
People
Technology
Process
Processes and practices
Technology and Tools
Scope and Schedule
People and interactions
Ask people to put a sticky note on the weather/season that represents for them the last sprint
Discuss the results and especially when some people feeling Sunny and some are feeling like Rain
Alternate
Winter is cold, slow
Spring is growth, fresh
Summer is happy, hot
Autumn refers to change, getting darker