Retro Retro – Retrospective on Retrospectives. What Makes Your Retro.'s Awesome!
=============
== Apathy
=============
PROBLEM: Team members are prisoners.
PROBLEM: "We talk every day. Why do we need a Retro?"
PROBLEM: Low participation at Retros.
GREAT EXPERIENCE: Get to know a new team. Ask 3 questions. Examples:
– Past: Where was your hometown of birth?
– Present: Tell me about brothers and sisters you have.
– Future: Describe your next perfect vacation.
GREAT EXPERIENCE: Ice Breakers
GREAT EXPERIENCE: PostIt notes with Start/Stop/Continue
GREAT IDEA: Group discussions
IDEA: Circle of questions
PROBLEM: Interest wanes.
IDEA: Changing up the Retro so as to not be boring. How do you know when to add in games?
GREAT EXPERIENCE: Change Location — get outside / at least a way from work space.
PROBLEM: Need honesty and engagement.
GREAT EXPERIENCE: Anonymity for safety.
PROBLEM: Apathy — hard to get the team to start to talk.
PROBLEM: Soliciting feedback for Retro Questions.
GREAT EXPERIENCE: Lean Coffee for Retro
GREAT EXPERIENCE: Post Lean Coffees on the board.
GREAT EXPERIENCE: Pace Pallete (paceorg.com)
IDEA: Use silence to spur talk.
IDEAD: OKR — Objectives and Key Results. "a method of defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes"
==========
== Conflict
==========
PROBLEM: Developers don't always get along and feelings get hurt.
PROBLEM: Confrontation @ Retros
IDEA: Resolve conflicts by asking "Why?" and keeping it positive.
===============
== Forgetfulness
===============
IDEAD: OKR — Objectives and Key Results. "a method of defining and tracking objectives and their outcomes"
IDEA: Keep a log during the sprint.
IDEA: Scott Dunkan's has used a timeline with ticks to mark the days of the sprint.
– Developers put positive stickies above the line and negative stickies below the line.
– Scott says he's seen teams end up with abundant retrospective content when using this method.
– A side benefit is that you can see the "team temperature" by looking at distribution of stickies on the timeline.
IDEA: Create stories to track "How can we improve".
=============
== References
=============
BOOK: "The Agile Retrospectives, Making Good Teams Great" by Diana Larson
BOOK: "Agile Retrospectives". Pragmatic Programmer
BOOK: "Participatory Workshops: A Sourcebook of 21 Sets of Ideas and Activities"
PAPER: Five Dysfunctions of a Team
SITE: OKR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OKR)
SITE: Pace Pallete (paceorg.com)
SITE: TastyCupcake.com