Agile Retrospectives: Helping Build High Performance Teams

For me a High Performance Team is a group of people that work together to consistently meet and exceed both expectations and their commitments by delivering high quality results and only working 40 hours a week. It’s not magic and it’s not a fairy tale. It takes a lot of effort and hard work to develop a group of people that are able to work at this level. As part of the Agile Scrum process, the Retrospective Meeting is an outstanding tool that can help develop a High Performance Team. In this session we will explore the keys to retrospectives, how to plan an effective retrospective and provide specific topics and techniques to use.

Transcript

1. Agile Retrospectives HELPING BUILD HIGH PERFORMANCE TEAMS FEBRUARY 12, 2016
2. Introduction Amy Weston, PMP, PMI-ACP Garmin International amy.weston@garmin.com Software Engineering Manager – 2 years ◦ Garmin Express, PC & Mac ◦ Garmin Connect Mobile, Windows Beyond Century, LLC – My own consulting firm – 11 years American Century Services – 11 years
3. Agenda  Agile Overview  Team Retrospective Meeting  Keys to Retrospectives  Retrospective Agenda  Sample Retrospective Agendas  References  Q & A
4. Agile Overview What is Agile?  Best Practices  Iterative Development  Incremental Development  Many flavors (Scrum, Pair-programming, XP, etc.)  Foundation ◦ Principles not practice ◦ Attention to People ◦ Adaptability Satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software
5. Agile Manifesto We Value… Individuals and Interactions over Processes and Tools Working Software over Comprehensive Documentation Customer Collaboration over Contract Negotiations Responding to Change over Following a Plan
6. Scrum Ceremonies Feedback Cycles  Planning meeting  Daily stand-up meeting  Backlog Grooming  Review meeting  Retrospective meeting
7. Agenda  Agile Overview  Team Retrospective Meeting  Keys to Retrospectives  Retrospective Agenda  Sample Retrospective Agendas  References  Q & A
8. Team Retrospective Meeting Purpose: Examine the team work processes  Occurs at the end of each iteration  Process-centric ◦ What worked well? ◦ What could be improved?  Identify improvement opportunity  Iterative Team Development  Team Self-Assessment Criteria ◦ Performance – Did we deliver on our commitment? ◦ Behavior – How well did we execute agile processes?
9. Agenda  Agile Overview  Team Retrospective Meeting  Keys to Retrospectives  Retrospective Agenda  Sample Retrospective Agendas  References  Q & A
10. Keys to Retrospectives  Engagement  Safe Environment  Actionable Item(s)
11. Engagement  Commitment  Food  Agenda  Participation - everyone has a voice  Activities  Keeping it Fresh
12. Safe Environment  Encourage Honest Participation  Direct the Conversation  No Judgement  Agenda vs Fluidity  Consistency  Building Trust over Time
13. Actionable Item(s)  Team creates an actionable item for themselves  Team commits to the item  Focus – only pick 1 or 2  Follow through  Review item at the next Retrospective
14. Agenda  Agile Overview  Team Retrospective Meeting  Keys to Retrospectives  Retrospective Agenda  Sample Retrospective Agendas  References  Q & A
15. Retrospective Agenda  Set the Stage  Gather Data  Generate Insights  Decide What To Do  Close the Retrospective
16. Set the Stage One word Check in  How do you feel?  How successful was the sprint?  How proud you are of our deliverable? Rate Team Performance Scale: 1 – 5  1 – Failed  5 – Nailed It Anonymous Check in  Write down 1-5  Tally and share results
17. Gather Data What is on everyone’s mind?  Brainstorming - Conversation  Notecards – Answering questions and sharing  Brainstorm on sticky notes and collate to find common themes  Activities/Challenges
18. Generate Insights Basic questions:  What are we doing right?  What is not helping the team?  What should be doing differently? Creative ways to ask the same questions:  WWW – Worked well, Kinda worked, Didn’t work  LLL – Liked, Learned, Lacked  Traditional – Start Doing, Stop Doing, Keep Doing  Drag Racing Car – Engine vs Parachute ◦ Engine – What helped us move faster? ◦ Parachute – What’s slowing us down?
19. Generate Insights Brain Writing:  What should we do differently? Write an idea – 3 mins  Pass the page to person on right, who continues to write about the improvement  Repeat several times until people run out of ideas. Share Time Travel:  Imagine that the next sprint was perfect. What is it like? What did we do?  Each person writes their thought on index cards.
20. Decide What To Do Determine the actionable item From the generated insights and suggestions, team needs to pick 1 Voting  Each person votes for 1 item  Lots of suggestions – 5 votes to find Top 5, 1 vote to find the actionable item Planning Poker Voting  Use planning poker cards for un-influenced voting  Chose low value if not worth doing, high value for should do
21. Close the Retrospective One word Check in  Describe how you felt this retrospective went  Favorite or least favorite part of today’s retrospective  One thing I learned Rate Team Retrospective Scale: 1 – 5  1 – Waste of time  5 – Great use of time Quick Brainstorm  Helpful  Hindered / got in the way  Things to do differently
22. Agenda  Agile Overview  Team Retrospective Meeting  Keys to Retrospectives  Retrospective Agenda  Sample Retrospective Agendas  References  Q & A
23. Appreciation Retrospective Set the Stage: Thank you notes Gather Data: Brainstorm about last iteration  Successes  Strengths  Events Generate Insights: What does the next sprint bring?  Successes  Strengths  Events Have the team work to identify themes/commonalities Where have we been and where do we want to go? What will get us there? Decide What To Do: What action will we focus on?
24. Stop/Keep/Start Retrospective Set the Stage: One word check in Gather Data: Notecards – 3 Red, 3 Green, 3 Blue  Things to stop doing - Red  Things to keep doing - Green  Things to start doing – Blue Generate Insights: 5 Whys in Pairs  Why did we “blank”? ie: Underestimate so many of the stories  Each person Ask and Answers  Second person must answer differently than the first  Reconvene the team to discuss what insights were generated Decide What To Do: What action will we focus on?
25. Turn the Tables Retrospective Set the Stage: Rate Team Performance, 1-5 Gather Data: Notecards – 2 Red, 2 Green  What went well – one or two words ONLY - Green  What can be improved – one or two words ONLY - Red  Pass Red cards to the left, and Green to the right  Round Robin – present the cards you now have Generate Insights: Red Card Review  Pass the Red cards to the person on your left (discard Green)  Suggest an action to improve what it written on the card  Second person must answer differently than the first  Reconvene the team to discuss what insights were generated Decide What To Do: What action will we focus on?
26. Getting to Done Retrospective Setting the Stage: Rate how well the team completed stories during this sprint. Gather Data: Puzzle Exercise  Setup ◦ Divide into teams of 5 ◦ 3 Puzzle Experts (Devs) ◦ 1 QA ◦ 1 Scrum Master/Product Owner ◦ Sets of pre-constructed puzzles ◦ Set up Kanban board ◦ Provide instructions ◦ Explain WIP and Expedite concepts S1 – Balloons ($10,000) There are four friends (Adam, Elizabeth, Peter, Sally) and each has a balloon. From the clues below can you match each of them with their age and balloon? The kids are aged 5, 6, 7 and 8 and one of them has a blue balloon. 1. The six year old girl has a green balloon. 2. Adam has a red balloon and is older than Peter. 3. Elizabeth is 5 years old but her balloon isn't yellow. Name Age Balloon Adam 8 Red Elizabeth 5 Blue Peter 6 Yellow Sally 7 Green
27. Getting to Done Retrospective Generating Insights: Determine which team won and debrief.  Prioritizing backlog, did you focus on value?  WIP limit constraints, what did you do when you were blocked?  Would you change WIP limits?  How did quality issues in puzzles impact the ability to get to done?  What was the impact to the team when a expedite came in?
28. Agenda  Agile Overview  Team Retrospective Meeting  Keys to Retrospectives  Retrospective Agenda  Sample Retrospective Agendas  References  Q & A
29. References Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great ◦ Paperback by Esther Derby (Author), Diana Larsen (Author) Sites with lots of ideas for retrospectives ◦ http://www.funretrospectives.com/ ◦ http://www.plans-for-retrospectives.com ◦ http://tastycupcakes.org/ ◦ http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Agile_Retrospective_Resource_Wiki Sites with a specific retrospectives exercise and learning ◦ http://dpwhelan.com/blog/uncategorized/learning-scrum-through-the-ball-point-game/ ◦ http://www.unbounddna.com/resources/agile-games/sudokuban-a-kanban-in-action-puzzle-game/ ◦ https://www.crisp.se/gratis-material-och-guider/scrum-checklist Puzzle site ◦ http://www.puzzlechoice.com/pc/Puzzle_Choicex.html
30. Q & A Thank you.