Retrospectives

How to made a good one

Created by Michał Lewandowski / @lewandm4

Retrospectives

Retrospectives relate to:

Engineering practices

Methods

Teamwork

Basics

Kinds of retrospectives

Basics

Activities

• Attention
• Relevance
• Confidence
• Satisfaction

Retrospectives

Formula

• warm-up
• data collection
• generating insights
• setting action points
• closing

Warm-up

Regular retrospective subjects

Good, Bad, Change

Warm-up

Regular retrospective subjects

Alternatives

• Worked well, Do it differently
• Stop, Start, Keep Doing
• Smiley, Frowny
• Prouds, Sorries

Warm-up

The goal

Example: Find a way to improve CI.

Warm-up

One word excercise

Everyone says one word about:

• feelings
• expectations
• attitude
• goals

Activities for

Gathering data

Stickers

Timeline

Activities for

Gathering data

Questioning

Team radar

Gathering data

Sticky notes

How to group sticky notes?

• one person does it
• round-robin
• pairs, fours, eights, ...

Insights

• understand facts
• dig up the most important information
• discover results of potential changes

Insights methods

Small retrospectives: 5 whys

Big retrospectives: Force field analysis

Action Points

SMART

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Results-focused
• Time-bound

Action Points

Dotmocracy

Changes should be selected, not ordered

Action Points

The 25-5 rule

By Warren Buffett

Closing thoughts

Appreceation

This activity

• changes the way members relate to each other
• helps avoiding fights

First retrospective ever

New team

Flight checklist

• talk with leaders for support
• talk with team members
• know the context (company and team)

Project retrospective

• do a survey (instead of talking)
• prepare a place and materials
• everything takes more time
• plan for the whole day meeting

The end