Walking Retrospective

Walking Retrospective is a data gathering activity.

Use it when you want to…
walk and talk outside.

Length of time:
Depending on the size of the team, 60 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

• We split into two subgroups
• Each group discussed a topic of their choice.
• As an outcome, each team proposed  at least one actionable item.
• We fixed an appointment after half an hour to get everyone together.
• We discussed together the topics and improvements proposed.
• We brought the proposals on which a consensus was reached in the team backlog of the improvements.

Conclusions
Your team may really enjoy the Walking Retrospective.  It can provide a good guide for developing team decisions.
In my experience it was very nice, the team felt invigorated and the ideas that we had were actionable and implemented starting from subsequent Sprint.

References

https://leanpub.com/retrospectivesworkout

CEPA Retrospective

CEPA (Create, Eliminate, Preserve, Accept) is a data gathering activity for Retrospectives.

Use it when you want to…
use a different approach, adapting the Wheel of Change framework, offered by Marshall Goldsmith, to the retrospective process.

Length of time:
Depending on the size of the team, 60 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

1. Introduce the framework by drawing the four quadrants on a poster paper or sticking up four pictures, you prepared earlier, for each CEPA (Create, Eliminate, Preserve, Accept)
2. Ask the team to think back about the current sprint/event and what items were to:
   Create represents the positive elements that we want to create in our future — things to add or invent.
   Preserve represents the positive elements that we want to keep in our future — things to maintain or improve.
   Eliminate represents the negative elements that we want to eliminate in our future — things to reduce or eradicate.
   Accept represents the negative elements that we need to accept in our future — things we try to delay or make peace
3. Give the team enough time (e.g. 10/15 minutes) to come up with ideas and position each post-it (ideally one item per post-it) in the related CEPA category.
4. Group any related items and discuss briefly as one team.
5. Vote: each participant votes, editing their choice adding a dot vote.
6. After a Braistorming session, define one specific action for each area of the quadrant, and then get specific about how that change will play out — who needs to be involved, the timeframe for the change, and how you’ll follow up to ensure the change sticks.

Conclusions
The 4 perspectives in Wheel of Change framework are very powerful as they help offer a balanced and realistic view of behaviour change: helping to not let us forget the things to preserve in pursuit of the new ones to create.
They help us to make choices about what we need to remove or what might be holding us back (eliminate) and importantly facilitate a realistic perspective by also accepting that we will never be the perfect.

References

Retrospectives Workout

WRAP Retrospective

WRAP is an innovative technique/game for Retrospectives.

Use it when you want to…
allow teams to examine multiple aspects of a sprint or in general of an event, to form original ideas on how it can be improved in the future.

Length of time:
Depending on the size of the team, 90 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

1. Introduce the Retrospective by drawing a large 2×2 matrix or sticking up four pictures, you prepared earlier, for each WRAP (Wishes, Risks, Appreciations, Puzzles) category,with a square labeled “Actions” in the middle; this is designated for the changes that the team commits to, as outcome of the retrospective
2. First ask the team to think back about the current sprint/event and what items were:
   • “Wishes”: ideas for their ideal Sprint
   • “Risks”: future pitfalls that can endanger the project, represented by a bomb
   • “Appreciations”: What they liked during the previous sprint
   • “Puzzles”: Questions for which they have no answer, represented by a question mark.
3. Give the team enough time (e.g. 10 minutes) to come up with ideas and position each post-it (ideally one item per post-it) in the related WRAP category.
4. Group any related items and discuss as one team.
5. After a Brainstorming session, discuss the novelty, feasibility, and impact of the ideas, and collaborate to analyze how define actions to be applied to the next sprint (use a model as a support for example S.M.A.R.T., Acceptance criteria or Definition of Done)
6. Vote on the most important actions to take forward and put them in the middle of your flipchart.

Here is the finished output of our Retrospective:

Conclusions
Your team may enjoy the WRAP Retrospective since it can break the barriers of boring retrospective analysis strategies and discover how you can make your next sprint, workshop, meeting, conference, project, etc., a success.

References

“Actions for Retrospectives”: http://www.innovationgames.com/actions-for-retrospectives/

FLAP Retrospective

FLAP is a data gathering activity for Retrospectives.

Use it when you want to…
think forward , with an eye on the past. It is a mix of retrospective and futurespective, which uncovers risks.

Length of time:
Depending on the size of the team, 90 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

1. Introduce the Retrospective by drawing the FLAP canvas quadrants:

   – Future Considerations: Things that we’ll need to think about/focus on next sprint or in the not-too-distant future.

   – Lessons Learned: Key takeaways from the sprint that just ended.

   – Accomplishments: Things we finished during the last sprint that we’re particularly proud of.

   – Problem Areas: This that did not go as well as we had hoped during the sprint that just ended

2. Ask the team members to write down their observations, ideally at least one observation for each quadrant
3. Ask the team members to place their observations in the appropriate canvas quadrants
4. Each writer describes their topics briefly: 15-30 seconds or 1-2 sentences typically per note
5. Group the items and discuss briefly
6. Vote: Each person votes,  editing their choice adding “+1”. They can put all their votes on one group of notes
7. The top three areas are carried for brainstrorming
8. After a Braistorming session, define actions for improvements you want to make (use a model as a support for example S.M.A.R.T., Acceptance criteria or Definition of Done)
9. Select the most important actions to take forward.

Conclusions
Your team may really enjoy the FLAP Retrospective.  It can provide a good guide for developing team decisions.

References

http://www.funretrospectives.com/

Circle Celebration

The Circle Celebration is a good  technique to close a Retrospective.

Use it when you want to…
motivate your team and take the joy out after a sprint or a project.

Length of time:
Depending on the size of the team, 30 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

1. Before you begin, choose an object that can easily be thrown and caught, like a marker or a ball.
2. Ask everyone who is physically present to stand in a circle. You can join the circle too.
3. Explain that whoever has the object has to talk about one of three topics:

   –  What I enjoyed the most during the sprint/project that just ended

   –  A person I would like to thank who helped me during the sprint/project that just ended

   – How I expect to apply what I learned during the sprint/project that just ended in the future

4. Toss the object to one person to start the activity
5. Participants toss the object randomly round the circle until everyone who has the opportunity to speak does so
6. End with a round of applause.

Conclusions
Your team may really enjoy the Circle Celebration to close a  Retrospective, since it can  be a more uplifting way to end an event.

References
Sharon Bowman, Training from the Back of the Room

Hot Air Balloon Retrospective

The Hot Air Balloon is a data gathering activity for Retrospectives.

Use it when you want to…
think forward , with an eye on the past. It is a mix of retrospective and futurespective, which uncovers risks.

Length of time:
Depending on the size of the team, 90 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

1. Introduce the Retrospective by drawing a balloon or sticking up a picture you prepared earlier. It is good to use symbols like sandbags to show the balloon being held down and flames driving it up.
2. Draw a sun and a stormy cloud in each of the top two corners.
3. First ask the team to think back about the current sprint, what items were “sandbags” that slowed the team down and what items were “flames” which helped push the team higher.
4. Give the team enough time (e.g. 10 minutes) to come up with ideas and position each post-it (ideally one item per post-it) in the balloon or around the basket depending on whether the item raised is a flame or a sandbag.
5. Group any related items and discuss as one team.
6. Repeat the exercise but this time look forward to the items that are stormy (things that will cause the team issues, problems or obstacles) and items that are sunny (the good things coming up, things that can be done to make the team better/more efficient etc).
7. Again group the items and discuss.
8. After a Braistorming session, define actions for improvements you want to make (use a model as a support for example S.M.A.R.T., Acceptance criteria or Definition of Done)
9. Vote on the most important actions to take forward.

Here is the finished output of our Retrospective:

Conclusions
Your team may really enjoy the Hot Air Balloon Retrospective. It can break the monotony of the usual Retrospective and it can provide a good guide for developing team decisions.

References
http://www.funretrospectives.com/hot-air-balloon-bad-weather/

http://www.scrummingman.com/2015/06/retrospective-hot-air-balloon/

Lean Coffee Continuous Retrospective Strategy

The Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less gathering that provides a framework for deep conversations and productive networking with colleagues. Participants collaborate to quickly identify their agenda.

As ScrumMaster, inspired by its totally open meeting format, I figured out this could be an excellent alternative to the “what did we do well, what do we want to change, what do we want to add” formula for retrospective, that is likely not inspirational enough to break team members out their well-worn thinking patterns. So I always ask myself if I’m doing a good job for them by breaking out their well well-worn patterns to offer them new ways to inspect how they work together.

Lean Coffee framework uses Kanban to structure meetings. It democratizes meetings to learn and discover things about what we don’t know in advance, as well as exploring further what we know. 
Sounds good as alternative to boring retrospectives isn’t it?

At the start, the ScrumMaster creates a Kanban board with a backlog, WIP, and “To Discuss”, “Discussing” and “Discussed” columns on the table.
Each participant writes down her desired topics, one per sticky note, to place in the backlog, i.e. in the “To Discuss” column. Each person gets a chance to quickly explain her topics. The participants in the retrospective dot-vote for prioritizing the backlog. And then, they’re off on a time-boxed discussion of the top priority topic.

When the timer politely dings, the group can elect to continue for another block of time or call that discussion done and switch to the next topic. I was surprised at how the group gives each topic its due then moves seamlessly to the next. I was also surprised how many great ideas can be shared within a short time period. They can also share “aha” moments and takeaways to wrap up.

Here’s more details how we ran it

Step 1: Float: Everybody floats their ideas by adding notes on topics they’d like to discuss, placing them in the “To Discuss” column. Give as much time as needed, but typically takes only 3-5 minutes. Limit ideas to 2-3 per participant to help focus voting.

Step 2: Promote: Each writer describes their topics briefly: 15-30 seconds or 1-2 sentences typically per note.

Step 3: Vote: Each person gets votes which they indicate by editing their choice of notes and adding “+1”. They can put all their votes on one note.

Step 4: Tote: The top three notes are carried over to the “Discussing” column, with the notes having the most votes at the top.

Step 5: Throat: Each of these notes is discussed for about 20 minutes.  When the ScrumMaster thinks the discussion has reached a good end-point he asks if everyone is complete.

When the process is complete, the ScrumMaster can add comments to the note and move it the “Discussed” column.
Repeat until all are discussed.  If enough time is left over, do another note or two.

Step 6: Note: ScrumMaster guides team to decide what to do, with discussed items in order to come out with an action plan for each topic and captures commitments in backlogged “process improvement”.

I have experienced some small variations for the name of this type of retrospective in order to have more fun with team. One time I named the retrospective “Lean Ice Cream”, with an equal format to the Lean Coffee but with the change that the Product Owner offered us a delicious ice cream.

After the latest Sprint Retrospective, using the Lean Coffee framework, a colleague of mine provided me a proposal in order to add some variations.

After his proposal I was hyper to write an article, including his suggestion, in order to share this experience with the world.


Since only the top three notes are carried over to the “Discussing” column, it’s possible that some valid topics are not discussed and someone could feel not listened or that some topic couldn’t be given the right attention, only because it was not in top three. I agreed with my team that some left topics in the backlog could be discussed during the sprint, reserving one or maximum two time box meetings of a half an hour each, instead to postpone the discussion to the next retrospective, when some topics could result much more heavy or related to not handled risks, because not faced in current sprint.
We went through one mini-retrospective, in the middle of latest sprint that we named “Continuous Retrospective” meeting of half an hour; in addition to that one we had at the end of previous sprint.

It was an exciting experience, because we were able to discuss two main topics left in the latest lean coffee retrospective backlog, finding improvements and a quick action plan for each of them.

When the time was up, some team members said “Yes, it was great, we were really agile” or “all retrospectives should be like this one” or “We were very effective”. For me it was a great experience and my team colleagues felt motivated, because we were experiencing together a new retrospective formula and at last no one was bored.

At the end I said: “Goodbye until our next Lean Coffee Continuous Retrospective…maybe next time we will call it Lean Cake because I’ll offer you a delicious homemade cake”.

Summary

The Lean Coffee is a structured, but agenda-less gathering that can be used as alternative to classical framework for retrospectives. Participants collaborate to quickly identify their agenda. Some enhancements have been briefly described in this article, allowing covering all topics proposed to discuss by development team.


References and suggested resources

http://www.lulu.com/shop/francesco-attanasio/retrospectives-workout/ebook/product-22606494.html

Non Violent Communication Agile Retrospective

“What others do may be a stimulus of our feelings, but not the cause.”– Marshall B. Rosenberg, Ph.D.,
Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life

Introduction

The Retrospective technique presented in this article is based on Nonviolent Communicationsm (NVC), a process developed by Marshall Rosenberg, that guides us to reframe how we express ourselves, how we listen to others and resolve conflicts by focusing our consciousness on what we are observing, feeling, needing, and requesting.
The power of NVC is in its pragmatic simplicity.
In any moment, there are two ways to enhance connection & understanding:
(1) vulnerably express our own feelings & needs, or
(2) empathically listen to the feelings & needs of the other.

NVC is not about changing other people or getting them to do what we want. It’s about creating connection & understanding.
Besides NVC is not a formula. It’s a process that helps to guide our consciousness to a new awareness.

Use it when you want to…

help your team have their feelings heard and validated and clearly request what they would like to happen to meet their needs, using a structured format.

Length of time:

Depending on the size of the team, 60 minutes should be enough.

Materials

Cards or wide Post-It Notes
Markers/Pens
White board or flip-chart paper

How it works:

Preparation

Prepare two types of cards, using the NVC wording.

The first card is how each person will express each thing they want to talk about:

 

Figure 1: First NVC Card

The four sections are:

• Observation — An externally observable behaviour. This should be purely factual observation, with no component of judgment or evaluation.
• Feeling — How the behaviour makes you feel. Naming the emotion, without moral judgment, enables you to connect in a spirit of mutual respect and cooperation.

  Examples of feelings when needs are met:
  Affectionate, Confident, Engaged, Excited, Exhilarated, Grateful, Inspired, Hopeful, Exuberant, Joyful, Calm, Refreshed.

  Examples of feelings when needs are not met:
  Annoyed, Angry, Disgusted, Uneasy, Detached, Tense, Embarrassed, Tired, Sad, Vulnerable, Scared, Pain.

   

• Need — When our needs are met, we have happy, pleasant feelings; when they are not met, we have unpleasant feelings. By tuning into the feeling, you can often find the underlying need. Stating the need, without morally judging it, gives you both clarity about what is alive in you or the other persons in that moment.
  Examples: Beauty, Autonomy, Empathy, Mourning, Honesty, Love, Meaning, Safety, Respect, Community, Contribution, Mutuality, Authenticity, Transparency, Acceptance, To be valued, Play Support.
• Request — Ask clearly and specifically for what you want right now, rather than hinting or stating only what you don’t want. What is something you would like to happen to meet your Need? Would you be Ok if there was another way to meet this need?
  It can lead to discussion around how to meet each others needs.

The second card is used when reflecting back what a person says:

Figure 2: Second NVC Card

Process

1. Introduce the NVC Retrospective displaying the wording as described in the Preparation section above.

2. Distribute to people on your team cards, post-its and pens. Give everyone some minutes (e.g.10′) to write notes using the format above. Use a separate card for each issue.

3. Depending on the time available, have people select their top 3–5 issues that they feel comfortable to share with other team members.

4. Split the team up into pairs. In each pair, have one person reading a card and the other person reflecting on it. Let everyone work through their cards for as long as needed.

This step is important as it is both a listening exercise to make sure you listen what was said and a validation of someone’s feelings, without going into solution mode.
Listening is the oldest form of therapy there is and a valuable skill to develop and use.

5. [Optional] Participants can read out their cards to the wider team if they feel comfortable sharing with the whole team. If you do this instead of step 4, make sure that someone in the team reflects back what was said so that the person still feels heard and validated.

6. Have people share the Requests that they wrote on their cards and capture these on the white-board or flipchart as topics for discussion. You can vote on them and discuss them in a Lean coffee format.

Conclusions

NVC Retrospective format safely allows people to express how they feel and also presents options that would help to make things better.

Always consider two Ways of Moving Toward Connection:

1. Honestly express your own feelings & needs: „

• ongoing awareness of feelings & connected needs in present moment;
• willingness & courage to express those feelings & needs (vulnerability).

2. Empathically listen to other’s feelings & needs: „

• qualities of empathic listening: presence, focus, space, caring, verbal reflection of feelings & needs; „
• no matter what is said, hear only feelings, needs, observations & requests.

References

http://www.nonviolentcommunication.com/aboutnvc/4partprocess.htm

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/non-violent-communication-agile-retrospective-rod-sherwin

The Problem Solving Tree Retrospective

The Problem Solving Tree tecnique uses a tree diagram, that is a visual depiction of relationships that starts with a central node, or “trunk.”
This is the problem that needs to be solved or the idea you are analyzing.
Each possible solution or event has its own “branch”, which comes off the trunk to the top or bottom right-hand side.
Additional decisions, consequences or effects split off from each of these “second layer branches”, giving the diagram a tree-like structure.

You can use tree diagrams to break down categories or events into finer and finer levels of detail. This helps simplify complex problems (with their proposed solutions) and makes it easier for you to get an overview of your options.

 

Figure 1: Tree Diagram Example

Use it when you want to…

focus on a specific problem your team needs to fix and/or when:

• there are too many actions and people don’t know where to start;
• some actions are too large to be tackled in a single sprint;
• some identified improvements are too nebulous to map with immediate actions.

Length of time:

Depending on the size of the team, 45 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

1. Start with a problem you need to solve, that you’ve identified before or in the Retrospective.

2. Write the identified problem on a sticky note, and stick it at the top of the tree.

3. Now ask your participants: “What can we do to solve this problem?”

4. For each different idea put a sticky note below the first, at the same level.

5. For each of these nodes do the same and build up a tree structure similar to an organisation chart.

6. For each idea you put up, ask if it can be done in a single sprint, and if everyone understands what they need to do. If the answer is no, break it down smaller and make another level in the problem solving tree.

7. Once you have some lower levels that are well understood and easy to implement in a single sprint, dot vote to see which to tackle in the next sprint.

Conclusions

Sometimes you need to come up with several possible solutions to a problem, and this is when the Problem Solving Tree Retrospective can be useful. It lets you take both a micro and a macro look at your problem, and generate as many options as you need to solve it.

References

http://www.growingagile.co.za/2012/01/the-problem-solving-tree-a-free-exercise/

http://it.freeimages.com/photo/albero-1331927

https://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/tree-diagrams.htm

The 4L’s Retrospective

The 4L’s is a data gathering activity for retrospectives.
It is a concept originally introduced by Mary Gorman and Ellen Gottesdiener.

4L’s stands for:
Liked — What did you like during this sprint / cycle/ project?
Learned — What did you learn during this sprint/cycle/ project?
Lacked — What did we lack during this period?
Longed for — What did you long for an improvement?

Use it when you want to…
Highlight the positive (liked & learned) as well as the negative (lacked & longed for).

Have the team think mostly from a factual (what happened) perspective, rather than an emotional perspective.

Length of time:
Depending on the size of the team, 60 minutes should be enough.

How it works:

1. Hang four posters, one for each L, around the room, titled appropriately.
2. Ask people to individually jot down what they Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed For — one per sticky note. When the time is up (e.g. 20 minutes), they can place their notes on each poster.
3. Divide the group into four subgroups; assign an “L” poster to each subgroup. They read all the notes, cluster as appropriate and identify themes.
4. Each team reports out on the themes.
5. The entire group decides how they might use the data. For example, ask, “How can we satisfy the ‘lacked’ or ‘longed for’ items?

Below you can see an example of 4L’s posters:

The 4L’s variation:

1. Use color stickies, one color per “L”.
2. Select a subset of the L’s, but remember the power of “longed for”.
3. At step 2: Instead of each person writing their own 4 L’s, split group into 4 teams and assign each team to one of the L’s. Each team collectively identifies, discusses and writes points. (Plan for more time to allow for discussion.)
4. After posting their items onto their assigned “L” poster, ask teams to rotate to each of the other 3 posters, adding items that occur to them.
5. After step 3: Facilitate a “gallery walk around” whereby people walk around and read what’s on the 3 other posters.

Conclusions

4L’s encourages full team participation, it is fast, focused and it can be fun. 

Please share your experience about retrospectives that can be fun and they are valuable.

References
https://www.ebgconsulting.com/blog/the-4l%E2%80%99s-a-retrospective-technique/