Retrospective. Total Recall

Anna Mamaeva2017

Let’s get acquainted

Senior Project Manager8+ years in IT (Project/Product Management)

• Mobile applications (iOS, Android)• Web-solutions development and management (Java, .Net)• Product developing and Marketing • Cross-functional team leadership• SAFe Agile certified (2016)

What’s going on?

Environment constantly changing

Fearless competition Customers demand more,

better and faster solutions Organizations need to evolve to

stay in business and keep delivering value; investing in large and expensive improvement programmes.

Why retro? To reach closure!

Research shows that when organizations go through changes, people have feelings and thoughts but no place to express them in the normal course of business.

Thus, their experience is carried forward as a heaviness that slows them down and keeps them from moving into the new setting with enthusiasm.

My team don’t need it!

• Our team is so good, we rarely come up with anything to improve at, so we want to stop.

• We find retrospectives boring, so we want to stop.

• We're too busy with real work (or it take too long), so we want to stop.

• We simply don't like retrospectives, so we want to stop.

YOU ARE DOING IT WRONG, IF

• Living in the past. Spend too much on looking back, no time to discuss future changes

• Unconnected Ideas. Individuals have ideas for improvement but don’t connect them to team action.

• Cloudy Thinking. If team is not clear on what to do then nothing happens

• Thinking too big! Be realistic! How much can you really do next sprint?

• No owner. When no one on team champions a change, it gets forgotten

1.Set the Stage: What is the purpose of the retrospective (e.g., improve delivery process)? What is the scope of exploration (e.g., last week)?

2.Gather Data: Collect facts and key memories3.Generate Insights: Interpret data, root cause analysis; identify solutions or improvements

4.Decide What to Do: Prioritise which actions to take5.Close the Retrospective: Summarise and review plan of action

Simple retrospective framework

Retro checklist

• What is the purpose of your retrospective?• What kind of outcome are you looking for?• Who will be invited to the retrospective?• Do you anticipate any problems in terms of personal safety and

willingness or ability to contribute?• What kind of retrospective process will you use?

• How will you set the stage?• How will you gather data?• How will you generate insights?• How will you decide what to do?• How will you close the retrospective?

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.

Prime Directive Rule

Considerations

• Empower your team• Change only one thing at a time• Use root cause analysis to find the causes (not

symptoms) of problems• Make the progress visible• Use different exercises in retrospectives

depending on the issues at hand, the mindset of the team, etc...

Doing it first time?

Encourage physical presence Avoid doing all the work yourself Confirm your understanding Rephrase blaming statements Keep the focus on the current phase Use a visual agenda Use a wide variety of questions

Open Ended Probing Redirecting Feedback and Clarification Close Ended

Kagenda: Agenda in Kanban

• At the start of the retro day I present a list of topics/activities we could cover in a suggested order with suggested timings (e.g. 30 mins) in a “to do” column.

• I introduced a “doing” column with a (work in process – WIP) limit of one topic at a time. When we decided to start a new topic there would be a quick discussion about how long we wanted to spend on the topic, which we wrote on the post-it note

• Add an “actions” column to the right of “done”

Distributed teams

Focus first on building relationships Use video cameras at all ends Prevent remote people ‘Going Dark’ Faces for everyone Use remote facilitators Collect input before the meeting Use online tools to share Agree on a signaling system Run remote working groups Remote proxies as representatives

Tools for Distributed teams retros

Real-time document-collaboration tools, such as Sync.in and Google Docs, where multiple people can edit the same document in real-time and see various contributions.

Names and highlighting can help too if you need to run Dot Voting Find a real-time mind-map tool for collaboration. Consider using

branches to group stickies into groups or to represent the different arms of ‘Went Well’, ‘Less Well’ and ‘Puzzles’.

Shared online boards, such as Lino it, edistorm, Bubbl.us, and Wallwisher.

IdeaBoardz is an online tool specifically for distributed retrospectives.

Capture the Retros Output

After the End

Take photos during exercises, and prepare a presentationConsider Using a WikiInclude the Prime DirectiveMake Actions Visible

Check Actions During Stand-Ups

Retro Exercises

Remember the Future

1. Set the Stage by presenting the future: ‘We are going to explore during this session the ups, downs, and key activities that made this project successful.’

2. Gather Data. Leave people to brainstorm events and place the events on the timeline. Generate Insights - With a timeline providing data, mine the information using other retrospective activities

3. Decide What to Do. ‘With a view of the future, what actions will you take away to help you deliver a successful project according to this future vision.’

4. Close the Retrospective. Recap what you just didand confirm those actions. Thank participants for their contributions and close the futurespective.

Margolis wheel

1. Choose a topic and ask for everyone to sit in a chair.Those on the inner ring are considered Counsellors, thoseon the outer ring Clients.

2. Use three minutes for each round of advice - roughly one minute for a Client to explain their problem, and two minutes for the Counsellor to talk through the impact and brainstorm potentialsolutions.

3. After three minutes, the outer ring (Clients)move one seat to the right. The inner ring (Counsellors)remains seated.

4. When the full circle is complete, the innercircle swaps places with the outer circle and the processrepeated until changed.

Players tell two truths and one lie. The object of the game is to determine which statement is the false one.

The goal of the icebreaker game is to determine which statement is false. The group votes on which one they feel is a lie, and at the end of each round, the person reveals which one was the lie.

Two truths and a lie

Break-Up Letter

Use it to understand the emotional connection between people and their products, services, and experiences

Try having your team write break-up letters to the parts of their process that did not add value and that they want to break-up with.

If you like, turn it around and write a Love Letter to the parts of the process that made a difference in your life

Retrospecting with the 5 Why’s

Sometimes you have a huge, obvious symptom that doesn’t have an obvious solution, and the team needs to spend time focused on the specific issue.

So this is an effective way to collaboratively drill deeply into the causes of a single issue

Retrospecting with the 5 Why’s

Capture a statement that summarizes the issue at hand in a clear, concise, well understood manner.

Display this statement at the top of a flip-chart page where everybody can see.

Answer the question “Why did this happen” individually, capturing your results on a sticky note and annotating it with a “1” in the top right corner.

Consider your answer to the previous question, and again answer the question “Why did this happen” individually, capturing your results on a sticky note annotated with a “2” in the top right corner.

Repeat this question and response cycle until you can no longer meaningfully

Many Faces of Jack Sparrow

Many Faces of Jack Sparrow

Designed to help talk members through how they felt about the project.

The outcome of that exercise is particularly interesting in that each team member identifies with an image (in some cases the same image or expression) for various reasons and spawns a lot of good discussion and laughter.

Many Faces of Jack Sparrow

Visual phone

Visual phone

1. Break the large group into groups of three people (one or two groups can have four people)

2. Ask everyone to write a sentence (on a post it), then place a blank post it on top of it (for now only the sentence author knows it)

3. Everyone pass the post it clockwise4. Each person read the sentence from the post it in front of  them, and then

create a representative drawing for the sentence (on the blanket post it)5. Everyone pass the post it clockwise.6. On a new post it, each person write a sentence for the drawing in front of

them, and place it on top of the post it set (now the set has 3 post its; the original sentence, the drawing, and the new sentence)

7. Everyone pass the post it set clockwise (for the groups of three people, the set should end in front of the original sentence writer)

8. Open the post it set so everyone can see the sentences and respective drawings.

Superhero

Work in pairs if you can sketch your project, team (or whatever) as a superhero

What are your● Super powers?● Weak points?● Who do we need as our sidekick?

Have a question? Write to

anna.mamaeva@gmail.com