Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Retrospectives – But Were Afraid to Ask”.
I'm often asked for a copy of these crib sheet notes, which were a synopsis of excellent work done by Kerth, Derby & Larsen (see references), plus ideas and work done with awesome colleagues at ThoughtWorks over the last few years.
1 Purpose
What’s the purpose of having a retrospective? It should be:
Informative – Communicate “the story” to all
Enlightening – Capture data, metrics or collective wisdom gained from the project
Progressive – Improve process/management/culture
Cathartic – Repair damage to the team or allow the team to enjoy what’s been accomplished
2 Plan
2.1 Set the expectation
- Sponsor speaks – to impress on all attendees the importance of the retrospective
- Everyone introduces themselves/comfort/expectations/objectives for the retro
- Kerth’s Prime Directive encourages attendees that this is not about blame/criticism:
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.
Note: be wary that not everyone will be happy with this -- a person said to me once that they genuinely did NOT believe that everyone on the project did the best job they could! So care on this...
- Ground rules are established to help people feel safe in contributing:
- We’ll try not to interrupt
- We’ll accept everyone’s opinion without judgement
- We’ll talk from our own perspective & not speak for anyone else
- We’ll listen to everything someone has to say before developing a response
- We’ll decide before speaking that it’s important enough to share at this time
- We’ll not joke about anyone in the room
- All participation in the retrospective is optional
- Mobile phones switched to silent
- Ground rules can be amended after any break
2.2 Safety & Motivation – ESVP
A useful initial “temperature check” – ask attendees to rank how they feel (anonymously) on the graph below, first in terms of Safety (how safe they feel about talking about aspects of the project), and then Motivation (how they feel about attending the retrospective itself. For Safety, the scale is:
5. Hey, no problem, I’ll say anything, about the project, or beyond it.
4. I’ll say most anything, but a few things might be hard to say.
3. I’ll share some things, but keep a few things to myself.
2. I’m not going to say much & will mostly let others bring up issues.
1. I’ll smile, claim everything’s great, agree with what the managers say,
but not say what I really think.
On the Motivation scale,
Explorer – Discovering new ideas & insights, pushing boundaries, keen to learn
Shopper – Looks over available info, happy to “go home” with a useful idea
Vacationer – Not really interested in this process, but might enjoy it anyway
Prisoner – Feel more/less forced to attend & could/should be doing something else
2.3 Timeline
- Ask attendees to mark cards with memorable events when they felt (green) positive, or (pink) negative. Then ask attendees to graph how they felt overall through the project as time progressed, using a single marker line. The facilitator may create a subjective “trend” line which they evaluate as the overall average line representing the project.
- Build a timeline on whiteboards/butcher paper of the project calendar. Mark the project start and end dates, plus major milestones, ends of phases etc. (yellow). If there was high turnover through a project it can be useful to add names of those joining/leaving the project.
2.4 Capture Data
Having established rules, safety, motivation and reminded all of the events/feelings through the timeline of the project the facilitator can run the main exercise, asking attendees to write comments on cards, or direct on whiteboards in different respects – the Common Questions are:
What worked well?
What should we do differently next time?
What still puzzles us?
It is also useful to group cards together if they cover similar topics.
Another alternative to the 2x2 matrix is the Retrospective Starfish
http://www.thekua.com/rant/?p=370
2.5 Vote On Priority
The facilitator can then ask the group for clarification of the meaning behind the comments where necessary (respecting anonymity as always), asking attendees to put a vote against the top few items they consider most important (using counters or “ones”).
We briefly celebrate the things “What worked well”, then move onto the “What should we do differently next time?”
2.6 Drill Down And Action
Drill down into the top priority “What should we do differently next time?” cards. Discuss as a group each card, and capture actions to resolve the issue. Assign one person to each action.
From the items with the highest number of votes, the workshop group can be split into teams (eg. team per table), and the items distributed (one or two per table), to “drill down” into each item to identify options for a way forward/solution for each.
MOST IMPORTANT OF ALL – ensure attendees “sign-up” to action items (stories) which must be taken forward. In this manner, all the learning from the retro has a responsible owner, and will be actioned, so the learning is incorporated into future work.
2.7 End
Give a final summary, of all the charts and actions.
Thank everyone for their input and confirm how the collateral produced from the retro will be handled, eg. Take high resolution (7megapixel) digital photos of all charts & distribute to attendees.
If appropriate, ask everyone to stand in a tight circle, and quarter turn clockwise – give the person in front of you a pat on the back.
Close the retro.
2.8 Quick retrospectives can be done (eg. on a daily basis) in 15 minutes by asking a team to write on green (good points), red (bad points) and yellow (questions) post-it notes their reflections from the day's work. The facilitator (a different team member each day) collects the notes & groups them on a whiteboard, and reads through them. The group then vote on which should be discussed/evaluated (three marks each).
2.9 Futurespectives
These work well when helping a group envision a way forward from the current situation. Each team member is asked to write a "Post Card from the Future". The scenario is that things have gone great & each person writes a post card from the future to describe how great things are. You then vote on the post cards and split the group into sub-groups to generate roadmaps/plans on how best to achieve the status on the popular cards.
3 Other Considerations
3.1 Attendees
Availability
Role/Department/Company representation
Focus – more on the past? More on the future? Equally balanced?
Style of the retrospective – suiting it to the culture
Model the community – eg. organizational structure to understand departments/roles/relationships
3.2 Facilitator
A facilitator should be technically competent, with experience of a variety of systems development projects, and have good facilitation skills. Someone external to the organisation and project is ideal, as they will be unbiased, and not hampered by relationships, preconceptions, politics or history.
3.3 Preparation
Precursors
- Expectations – a retrospective briefing sheet should be sent to all attendees, to clearly identify purpose, location, timings, facilitator, responsibilities, expectations etc.
- Interviews – it’s important for the facilitator to know something of those who are to attend in advance, to set the scene for the retrospective, understand perspectives etc.
- Data
- Targets vs. Actuals (original targets/risks, actual quality/cost/time/scope/staffing/issues)
- Metrics (iteration velocity, test coverage, build breaks, defects)
- Artifacts – outputs from the project, deliverables etc.
Length
Should reflect the period of effort concerned, eg.
1-2 Weeks work – 1hr retrospective
6 Month project – 3 day retrospective
Location (see also Equipment below)
This should be a room dedicated to the retrospective for the period of the workshops, ideally lockable, to allow equipment/materials and personal effects to remain undisturbed.
Appropriate size for the number of attendees, with easily movable work tables and chairs – “Cabaret” style layout works well, with 4-6 people per table.
3.4 Equipment
Whiteboard marker pens (what works well is red for problems, green for good things, black for points of information, blue for neutral communication), one per attendee ideally.
Flip charts (paper with wall adhesive backing is good, static plastic erasable is great too)
White boards
Name tags (pin on ideally, as stickers soon fall off)
Digital camera (ideally 5megapixel minimum)
Laptop with presentation/spreadsheet software
Computer projector
Colour printer
Electrical extension cables with one-to-many sockets
4 References
Kerth, Norman L.
Project Retrospectives: a handbook for team reviews ISBN 0-932633-44-7
Derby, Esther & Larsen, Diana
Agile Retrospectives ISBN 0-9776166-4-9
http://www.retrospectives.com/
http://www.thekua.com/rant/?p=370 Retrospective Starfish
