Team-drivenImprovement withRetrospectivesRachel.Davies@UnrulyMedia.com

Twitter: @rachelcdavies

Agile Coach @ Unruly

Who’s Here?

Enjoy working in a team?Enjoyed working in a team?

Team-driven!

FrustrationsSometimes teamwork isdifficult ..

Sustainable pace?

“Retrospective?”

• Looking back overa lifetime of work?

“Retrospective?”

Pioneered  by  Norman  Kerth.

“a  ritual  held  at  the  end  of  a  project  tolearn  from  the  experience  and  to  planchanges  for  the  next  effort.”

Book:  Project  Retrospec:vesexplains  techniques  for  3  day  off-­‐site  mee:ngs  at

the  end  of  a  project  to  iden:fy  lessons  learned.

Project Retrospectives

A meeting where a team looksback on a past period of work sothat they can learn from theirexperience and apply this learningto future work.

Retrospectives

Safety Check

Project Timeline

Mining The Time Line for Gold

Use flip-chart to categorize experience• What has worked well?• What have we learned?• What to do differently?• What is still puzzling?• What needs further work?

“A discussion ofwhat went right andwhat went wrong inthe Sprint, andwhat can be doneto improve the nextSprint.” 2004

Cut-down list of questions• What went well?• What didn’t go well?• Actions

Typical Scrum Retrospective

Risk: team judge past events rather thanthinking how to react next time around!

Disconnected Cycle?

PO

SM

£££

Agile Retrospective Cycle

From “Agile Retrospectives”by Derby & Larsen

Pitfalls

No time to improve!

Living in the past

Spend too much on looking back, no time to discuss future changes.

Unconnected Ideas

Individuals have ideas for improvement butdon’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

Always the Same Owner

Scrum Master takes on actions for the team ratherthan supporting team to do actions themselves.

Invisible Actions

Actions from retrospective not visible to team or outside.

Activities that trivialise

Picking on people

Maintain safety

Tips

Meetings require pre-workand follow up!

Hard to learn about creating effective retrospectiveby being a participant

Care for People

• Make a safe space• Diffuse tension• Bring food and

drinks

Slow Down!

• People will not talk if you do notlisten to them

• Invite everyone to share whathappened

• Take time to gather the wholestory

• Involve each member of theteam

• Forget about making lists ofwhat went well, etc.

• Break down into improvementgoal and action steps smallenough to fit into sprint cycle• Prioritise along with other work• Review in Scrum meetings

Apply Scrum planning

Rotate theFacilitator

Experiment!• Retrospectives are

about learning fromexperience

• Experiment andadapt the format togenerate newinsights

Is there an elephant in theroom?

Acknowledge the current state

Drop the Timebox?

• Try running yourretrospective withouta timebox.

• If there’s not much totalk about finish early

• If there’s a lot to talkabout it keep going(with plenty ofbreaks)

Get Outside

• Get out of the office• Go to the park or the

pub• Lifts pressure and

generates energy• Remember to take

notes and photos

Be patient

Change Takes Time

References

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

• Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Esther Derby & Diana Larsen.

• The Retrospective Handbook by Patrick Kua

• Collaboration Explained by Jean Tabaka.

• Agile Coaching by Rachel Davies & Liz Sedley.• Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner• Innovation Games by Luke Hohmann

• http://facstaff.unca.edu/manns/retropatterns.html• http://www.retrospectives.com

• http://www.retrospectivefacilitatorgathering.org/

• http://xp123.com/xplor/xp0509/index.shtml

Any Questions?

Thank you!