Rewind to fast forward: retrospectives as the essence of Agile

Rewind to fast forwardRetrospect ives as the

essence of Agi le

Luigi Berrettini@luigiberrettini

# m i n i i a d

# a g i l e

# r e t r o s p e c t i v e s@coderstug

Silent birthday

People map

Non musical chairs

Sanity check

Insanity

Doing the same thing over and over again and

expecting different results

Advice

Bob Newhart

No organization no party

Post-mortems / Lessons learned

• Too late to change something

• Useless for different projects or situations

• No focus on team and team issues

• No one cares if project ok

• Witch hunt if project ko

• Often sacrificed to save money

Can you help him?

Are you serious?

Let’s inspect and adapt!

Agility

Continuous improvement

Scientific method

PDCA cycle

Walter Shewhart Edward Deming

PLAN

Decide activities assuming that perfection

could not be reached (experiment)

DO

Implement the plan to get information on

how to do better

CHECK

Analyze: planned versus actual

ACT

Adapt the process

At regular intervals, the team

reflects on how to become more

effective, then tunes and adjusts

its behavior accordingly

12th principle of the Agile manifesto

Challenging the 12th principle – When?

At regular intervals, the

team reflects on how to

become more effective,

then tunes and adjusts

its behavior accordingly

Challenging the 12th principle – Who?

At regular intervals, the

team reflects on how to

become more effective,

then tunes and adjusts

its behavior accordingly

Challenging the 12th principle – What?

At regular intervals, the team

reflects on how to become more

effective, then tunes and adjusts

its behavior accordingly

*SPECTIVES

Challenging the 12th principle – Why?

At regular intervals, the

team reflects on how to

become more effective,

then tunes and adjusts

its behavior accordingly

Challenging the 12th principle – How?

At regular intervals, the

team reflects on how to

become more effective,

then tunes and adjusts

its behavior accordingly

Everyone continuously reflects

on how to become more

effective to better team

behavior accordingly

The enhanced 12th principle

Reflection

The need for ritual

Rituals bring people together,

allowing them to focus on what is

important and to acknowledge

significant events or accomplishments

They give rhythm and familiarity to

an otherwise chaotic life

A basic human instinct, as real,

urgent and raw as our need for

food, shelter and love

What is a retrospective?

Meeting to inspect and adapt methods and

teamwork after an increment of work

Safe place for the team to communicate

constructively sharing feedback

Sense-making process to understand what

happens in order to act for improvement

Time for the team to reflect and learn:

improvement doesn't happen by hoping

Provides insights applicable now, to the

current team and business problem

Introspection

Raise the visibility of issues and discuss

them before they build up to a crisis

Identify, group and order the major items

that went well and potential improvements

Inspect how the team is doing: people,

relationships, processes, practices and tools

HANSEI

Improvement

Build trust and participation creating a safe

environment

Learning from experience, building on what

works, gaining perspective and deciding

what to change

KAIZEN

Devise an actionable plan for improvements

to be enacted before next retrospective

Kerth's retrospective 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

Mini retrospectives

Full-fledged retrospectives

GATHER DATA (30 - 50%)

Create a shared picture of what happened

Focus on looking for both positive and negative events

Expand everyone's perspective

SET THE STAGE (5%)

Get prepared to be more trusting and likely to participate

GENERATE INSIGHTS (20 - 30%)

Identify strengths and issues

Look at causes and effects and think about them analytically

Group and prioritize the generated data

DECIDE WHAT TO DO (15 - 20%)

Pick the top 2 or 3 items where improvement is desired

Discuss the executable action items that address top issues

The team makes a vote on their ability and desire to

commit to execution of each action item

CLOSE THE RETROSPECTIVE (10%)

Reiterate actions and follow-ups, appreciate contributions

and identify ways to make the next retrospective better

Activities quick reference matrix (I)

Activities quick reference matrix (II)

Facilitation

Differences

Mediators propose solutions

(knowledge of the domain)

Facilitators help people find a solution

(group management skills)

Attitude

Not-judging Process focused

Multi-directed partiality

Not-knowing Solution focused

Choose the right one to...

Keep a confidence

Take sandwich orders

Choices

Fundamental facts in all human relations

Jacob Levy Moreno

Choices

MUTUAL two people choose each other

CHAIN A chooses B who chooses C and so on

GAP disjoint clusters of people

STAR most chosen person for a criterion

Sociometry

Measures the degree of relatedness among people

Group dynamics

ZURCHER

Orientation, Catharsis, Focus, Action, Limbo, Testing, Purposive

TUCKMAN

Forming, Storming, Norming, Performing, Adjourning

Team development

1. uncertainty: getting one's feet wet

2. visible and hidden conflicts among team members

3. increased cohesion and collaboration

4. full development of group and individual potential

5. group has fulfilled its goals and objectives

1. create an environment that allows sharing

(set the stage)

2. support and promote clarity and clarifications

(relax the time box constraint if needed)

3. the team sets the rules of the game:

do not force, but invite or propose

4. let them work and produce

5. recognize the group members for their accomplishments

and celebrate the group's overall success

System dynamics

structures of what is perceived as an attractor

barriers i.e. who is included and who is not

role/identity of a member i.e. that of the team

group diversity: homogeneous groups are dumber

physical environment and workplace culture

A

B

I

D

E

Tips and tricks

Retrospectives on steroids

• Retro box

• No tables

• Change facilitator

• Vary the technique

• Be organized but flexible

• Build a safe environment

• Open honest communication

• Encourage diversity of views

• Listen, ask, clarify, summarize

• Be respectful

• Appreciate successes

• Manage group dynamics

• Use root cause analysis

• Double loop learning

• Look at the big picture

• Ideate and look at the future

Achieving effectiveness

Smells

• Blamestorming

• Wait for the retro

• Back to the future

• Offline retrospective

• Retrospective in the team room

• Only a few participants

• Everybody is happy

• Reporting to management

• Elephant in the room

• Facilitator doesn't facilitate

• Looking for silver bullets

• Too short retro

Hands-on practice

Gloger's ball point game

• Team members must touch each ball at least once

• Balls must have air-time

• No balls to direct neighbors (left or right)

• Start point is also end point

• 3 iterations:

- 1 min preparation time

- 2 min play

Debriefing

• Rhythm

• Inspecting and adapting is better than planning

• Collaboration and communication increase productivity

• Systems velocity can be improved only changing the process

• Theory of constraints:

- stretch goals increase performance

- impossible goals decrease it

• Flow if:

- doable challenge

- meaningful work

- no disturbance during iterations

References

Books

Links

The Scrum primer

The Scrum Guide

Retrospectives.com

Beyond post-mortems

Patterns for iteration retrospectives

Silent birthday

People map

Non musical chairs

IAD 2013 - Retrospettive creative

Multi-directed partiality

Sociometry

Stages of group development

ABIDE model

Retro box

Creative retrospectives

Effective retrospectives

Scrum through the ball point game

Tasty cupcakes

Agile in practice: retrospectives after iterations

Agile retrospectives: Making good teams great!

60 second Scrum better retrospectives

How to improve your Scrum sprint retrospective?

Ball Point Game

Videos

Images

Ready set go

Clock close up

Mini IAD logo

The ice breaker

Silence

People map

Circle of chairs

The shining

Einstein

Bob Newhart

Stop

Disorganization

Morgue

Delorean

Moonwalk

I define Agile

Upward bow

Exercise

Scientific method

PDCA

Pergamena

Pinned post-it note

Spectives

Wing mirror

Tribe dance

Retrospective

Blackboard

Hansei

Kaizen

USS Enterprise

Mini retrospective

Lego retrospective

Office swimmers

Office jugglers

Facilitation

Facilitator

Attitude

Pat on shoulder

Choice

Friends

Business people

Hands in sand

Hand hold circle

Dave Snowden

Magician

Bicep

Post-its

Success baby

Bad smell

Hands-on

The ball point game

Ball point game moments

Magnifying glass

Agile Retrospectives

Bookshelf

Fun retrospectives

Getting Value out of Retros

Project Retrospectives

The Retrospective Handbook

Web

Colors

Drive-in

Feedback