Effective Agile Retrospectives

Tips to run valuable retrospectives

Myriam Hamed Torres Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/myriamhamedtorres Twitter: @M0N4K0

Just a tiny bit about me...

• Software Development Manager at Thomson Reuters

• Member of the TR PM Center of Excellence

• Member of London Agile Communities:

– DSDM Consortium

– PMI UK Agile Forum

– Agile Coaching Exchange

– Agile Evangelist & Practitioners

• Accredited DSDM Agile Professional

• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)

• Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives

• Prerequisites for retrospectives

• Retrospective Exercises

• Executing effective retrospectives

• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams

• Benefits and value of retrospectives

Agenda

• Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives

• Prerequisites for retrospectives

• Retrospective Exercises

• Executing effective retrospectives

• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams

• Benefits and value of retrospectives

Agenda

WHAT DOES “RETROSPECTIVE” MEAN?

Retrospective (rɛtrə(ʊ)ˈspɛktɪv)

adjective:

1. looking back on or dealing with past events or

situations.

Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/retrospective

WHY DO WE DO RETROSPECTIVES?

• Environment constantly changing

• Fearless competition

• Customers demand more, better and faster solutions

Organisations need to evolve to stay in business and keep

delivering value; investing in large and expensive

improvement programmes.

What makes retrospectives different from traditional improvement programmes?

”The Team” and “Frequency”

Retrospectives can be held at the end of any process (timebox, increment, project, programme…)

WHEN TO RUN RETROSPECTIVES

• Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives

• Prerequisites for retrospectives

• Retrospective Exercises

• Executing effective retrospectives

• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams

• Benefits and value of retrospectives

Agenda

Norman L. Kerth highlights 5 important

prerequisites for a successful retrospective:

1. “the need for the ritual”

2. “naming the process”

3. “prime directive for a retrospective”

4. “the darker side of the retrospectives”

5. “retrospective facilitator”

Prerequisites for retrospectives

• Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives

• Prerequisites for retrospectives

• Retrospective Exercises

• Executing effective retrospectives

• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams

• Benefits and value of retrospectives

Agenda

RETROSPECTIVE EXERCISES

Some exercises:

● Asking Questions

● Star Fish

● Sail Boat

● Happiness Index

● Constellation

There many more… so select the retrospective exercise that better fits the team’s needs and

objectives

ASKING QUESTIONS

Key four questions defined by Norman L. Kerth:

• What did we do well, that if we don’t discuss we might forget?

• What did we learn?

• What should we do differently

next time?

• What still puzzles us?

ASKING QUESTIONS

• Stop – These are activities that do not bring value to a team or customer.

• Less – These are activities that require a high level of effort and produce little benefit.

• Keep – Usually these are good activities or practices that team members want to keep.

• More – Activities on which a team should focus and perform more often.

• Start – Activities or ideas that a team wants to bring into the game.

STAR FISH (AKA WHEEL)

Start

More

Keep

Less

Stop

STAR FISH

Source: http://www.funretrospectives.com/starfish/

• The islands represent the team’s goals/vision. They work every day in order to reach these islands.

• The rocks/icebergs represent the risks they might encounter

along the way.

• The anchor on the boat is everything that slows them down on their journey.

• The clouds/sails and the wind represent everything that helps them to reach their goal.

SAIL BOAT (AKA SPEEDBOAT)

*Images sourced from Google search

SAIL BOAT

Source: http://www.emmajefferies.com/blog

Source:

https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/december/retrospe

ctive-the-fun-way

Source: http://www.agile-ux.com/tag/innovation-games/

Graphic representation of team members’ emotions during iterations.

HAPPINESS INDEX (AKA NIKO- NIKO CALENDAR)

Source: Agile Trail

• Ideal for teams/people that do not feel very comfortable

sharing opinions.

• Can open any other retrospective.

• Can cover different areas of improvement: technical,

innovation, people, etc…

• All you need is an open space and an object to be the

centre of universe.

• Read out statements/questions and let the team members

move closer or farther from the universe depending on

their views.

CONSTELLATION

YOU CAN ALSO TRY...

● Car brand

● One-word retrospective

● Four L's Retrospective

● Force Field Analysis

● Bubble up

● 6 Thinking Hats

● Five whys

● … and many more

• Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives

• Setting the scene

• Retrospective Exercises

• Executing effective retrospectives

• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams

• Benefits and value of retrospectives

Agenda

● Empower your teams

● 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...

● The key is the retrospective facilitator

CONSIDERATIONS

• Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives

• Setting the scene

• Retrospective Exercises

• Executing effective retrospectives

• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams

• Benefits and value of retrospectives

Agenda

The same considerations for retrospectives apply to distributed teams. Greater emphasis on: • Trust and empowerment of the team • Retrospective facilitator with the right experience • Tools - applications, webcams, etc...

Some useful tools:

http://en.linoit.com/

http://ideaboardz.com/

https://pinitto.me

http://lithespeed.com/

DISTRIBUTED RETROSPECTIVES

SAIL BOAT (LINOIT.COM)

ASKING QUESTIONS (IDEABOARDZ.COM)

• Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives

• Setting the scene

• Retrospective Exercises

• Executing effective retrospectives

• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams

• Benefits and value of retrospectives

Agenda

• Actions are raised and owned by the team. There is no transition or handover task on to someone else – speeds the resolution time.

• Actions help improving team performance. Better performing teams help the organisation in delivering value to customers faster.

• Anybody can be involved; Product Owners, Business Analysts, Customers, etc… Increasing collaboration across functions.

BENEFITS OF RETROSPECTIVES

• Project Retrospectives : A Handbook for Team Reviews (Norman L. Kerth)

• Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (Esther Derby, Diana Larsen and Ken Schwaber)

• Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives - A Toolbox of Retrospective Exercises (Luis Gonçalves and Ben Linders)

• Retrospective Plans - http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Retrospective_Plans

• Agile Retrospective Resource Wiki - http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Main_Page

LITERATURE & RESOURCES

Any questions?

Grazie mille!!