Retrospectives

Tools arranged in the shape of a house on a wooden background

Retrospectives Are Real Work, Too

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Tools arranged in the shape of a house on a wooden background“We don’t have time for a retrospective. We have ‘real work’ to do.”

How many times have you heard this? It comes up frequently in the classes I teach, I’ve heard it more times than I care to count. It frustrates me, and yet, I understand where it comes from. This issue isn’t limited to retrospectives. One of the challenges that managers, coaches, and consultants face is helping groups and teams to effectively balance productive work with work that builds and sustains their productivity. The key to that is understanding that working on the group’s functioning is also real work.

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Why Project Retrospectives Are Challenging

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Project retrospectives are challenging. I spoke a bit about this in lessons learned vs. project retrospectives. You might look at a merger, acquisition, implementation of a new ERP system, or even a major upgrade of an ERP or CRM system. These are non-reoccurring events. A retrospective of this type is quite different from a typical agile retrospective, primarily because on this type of project, people will change and the project will not repeat (the definition of a project is that it is a unique endeavor). At issue here is the fact that if the people will not be the same and the project does not reoccur – then they can’t come up with actions they will apply right away based on what they learned. Ideas for change often just end up in a spreadsheet, a book shelf, or some electronic tool. A big book of “lessons learned” that sits on the shelf gathering dust does not provide much, if any, value.

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Focusing Agile Retrospectives

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The most common agile retrospective focus is on the sprint (or iteration) that was just completed. For most agile teams, this is the past two weeks. We have many more options for retrospectives than simply looking back on the last sprint. We can look at a specific topic, an event, use a future focus, or look at a much longer timeline. Regardless of the focus, we are aiming to learn, generate ideas, and (ideally) agree on actions to take moving forward to improve to sustain.

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Agile Safari – What’s Not Being Said?

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Have you been in a situation where no one would bring up the problem that everyone knew was “in the room?” I’d guess that everyone has been there. So often, we don’t bring up the “elephant in the room.” For anyone who has not heard of this, the elephant in the room is a saying for the real or obvious truth that is not being addressed. Given an elephant in a room would be hard to miss, when people ignore it, they are typically pretending it is not there.

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The Real Baseline Agile Retrospective Format

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I always considered this six question format to be the Baseline Agile Retrospective Format.  I say baseline instead of standard because a baseline is something to build on, not an ‘always the way’ standard (I know I’m splitting hairs here).

I believe the six question baseline agile retrospective format is a solid way to teach people how to do an agile retrospective. They can see, relatively clearly, the different parts that should be included. It can be a useful starting point to address additional questions and challenges.

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Bad Standard: Plus-Minus-Delta Agile Retrospectives

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Many people dislike the 3 question, plus-minus-delta retrospective. I am one of them. The plus-minus-delta agile retrospective leads to many problems. I say it was never the “standard” in the title, so why are so many people confused? Or…am I the one confused?

While co-coaching recently, the other coach and I had a brief exchange about how the “standard” agile retrospective was not good. I was a little confused, since while I certainly do not always use ‘the standard’ or baseline agile retrospective, there is value to it — at least I thought so? The baseline retrospective I employ is a solid method to teach people how to do an agile retrospective. I asked a few more questions and realized that while we were both using the term “standard retrospective,” we had different definitions of the term.

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Lessons-Learned vs Project Retrospectives

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I wrote about agile team retrospectives in a recent article and find that the term retrospective can be used in many different ways. I’ve heard people ask, “Did you just change the name from lessons-learned to retrospective?” Although there are similarities, there are some key differences. Let’s review a few types and consider the issues with most lessons-learned meeting.

Release and Project Retrospectives

While agile team retrospectives  have a team focus on celebrating, learning, and improving their relationship on a regular basis, there are other types of retrospectives.

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Agile Retrospectives Improve Team Relationships

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I get a lot of questions about agile retrospectives from existing clients who are familiar with agile, those new to it, and folks who don’t use agile (so, yes: everyone!). This is one in a series of posts on retrospectives covering a variety of angles on the subject. [Agile Retrospective Resources has a list of the upcoming articles and many other resources.]

What is an agile retrospective?

Not this kind of retro!
Not this kind of retro!

An agile retrospective (often simply called a retro) is a regular ritual focused on celebrating, learning, collaborating, committing, and improving the team’s relationship.  These items, taken together form the value of an agile retrospective.  There are different types of retrospectives (e.g. release and project retrospectives); though here I am focusing here on regularly scheduled team retrospectives (e.g. sprint retrospectives or iteration retrospectives).

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Agile Retrospective Resources

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There is a lot of information out there are agile retrospectives.  I have a number of articles on them and there are plenty of places with information including blogs, websites, and books.

My Articles About Agile Retrospectives

I’m working on a series about retrospectives, and have included a list of articles that are already written as well as some of the future articles.  If you are interested in subscribing to get notified of the next post, please subscribe via email.

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