Retrospectives: Look Back to Move Forward

Retrospectives are one of the most powerful tools in a team lead’s toolkit. They can help uncover hidden problems and blockers, improve processes, increase morale, and even make your products better. However, a lot of teams go through the motions of retros without really understanding the method behind the madness. They end up doing the same old “What went well, what didn’t go well” format over and over again, with diminishing returns.

It’s important to use the right tool for the right job - there are actually a variety of different types of retrospectives you can use, and each one has unique strengths and weaknesses. I’ll discuss five different types of retros you can add to the mix to keep things fresh. I’ll explain when, how and why to use each type of retro with your team, along with some tips on how to best facilitate the event.

Transcript

1. R E T R O S P E C T I V E S
   I N S P E C T. R E F L E C T. C O R R E C T.
   

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2. @mad_typist bit.ly/JLslides
   H E L L O I ’ M J E S S I E L I N K !
   Director of Engineering, Twitter
   Former LivingSocial’er
   Former US Air Force Officer
   Certified Scrum Master
   

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   W H AT I H O P E Y O U TA K E A WAY T O D AY
   • 5 different types of retros you can immediately start using with your team
   • When to use each type of retrospective
   • Why to use each type of retrospective
   

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4. T H E P R O B L E M T O D AY
   

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   • They get stale
   • People do them but don’t understand how to get the most of out of them
   • They are poorly facilitated
   • Things don’t change/improve
   T R O U B L E W I T H R E T R O S
   

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   C O M M O N M I S TA K E S
   • Facilitator goes in with an agenda or a pre-determined answer they want to hear
   • We collect feedback, but don’t identify action items
   • We introduce bias into the sticky note process
   • People read the stickies one by one
   • People stop doing retros, or only do them when it’s all going wrong
   

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8. W H Y S H O U L D
   I D O R E T R O S ?
   

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   B E C A U S E F E E L I N G S A R E … .
   • Icky!
   • Hard to talk about!
   • Difficult to understand
   • Scary
   

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    R E T R O S C A N D O A L O T O F
    T H I N G S
    • Diagnose hidden problems and blockers
    • Determine root causes of a problem
    • Build team morale
    • Improve processes
    • Get employee buy in
    • Set goals
    

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11. H O W T O
    R E T R O L I K E
    A P R O
    

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    I T ’ S A L L A B O U T T H E
    C L U S T E R S
    • Have your team take turns creating and
    summarizing the clusters for each
    category
    • Why are clusters are powerful?
    • What about the outliers? What if there
    are no clusters?
    

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13. R E T R O # 1
    The 4 Ls
    

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    I N S T R U C T I O N S
    Team fills out cards for the following categories:
    Lacked Longed For Learned
    Liked
    

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    W H Y I L I K E T H E 4 L S
    • Removes the word “wrong” from the
    conversation
    • These are evocative words
    • First person perspective on events during
    the sprint
    • Helps focus on outcomes (actual and
    desired)
    Lacked Longed For Learned
    Liked
    

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    H O W / W H E N T O U S E T H E 4 L S
    • Use the 4 Ls for a normal sprint (2 weeks), or release
    • Use this to diagnose root cause
    • “Lacked” is a particularly ripe category to find process improvements
    • Also useful for conferences, training, events
    

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17. R E T R O # 2
    Draw how the sprint went
    

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    I N S T R U C T I O N S
    • Hand out blank sheets of paper and pens
    • “Draw the sprint”
    • That’s it!
    • Intentionally broad direction - I usually tell the team “Whatever that
    means to you, go ahead and start drawing”
    • What happened, how did you feel about it?
    • Afterwards, take turns describing what’s happening in your picture
    

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    W H Y I L I K E D R A W T H E
    S P R I N T
    • Picture really is worth a
    thousand words. And these
    are words you won’t get folks
    to say out loud normally.
    • It’s fun!
    • Learn a lot about your team
    and how they think
    

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    H O W / W H E N T O U S E D R A W T H E S P R I N T
    • Use this to break up the monotony, when things feel “boring”
    • Useful when people have been disengaged and/or not writing down much at retro
    • This is a retro that should be used sparingly
    • I recommend once a quarter
    

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25. R E T R O # 3
    Timeline retro
    

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    I N S T R U C T I O N S
    • Draw a timeline, with an arrow at the right end
    • Stickies represent events:
    • Good events
    • Problematic/bad events
    • Significant event
    • Once all the stickies are written, place them along the timeline approximately where
    they happened
    

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    I N S T R U C T I O N S
    • Use colored stickies to represent the good (green), bad (red), and significant (yellow)
    events
    • If you don’t have enough colors, as an alternative, use the above the line for good
    events, below the line for bad, and then on the line for significant events
    

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28. @mad_typist bit.ly/JLslides
    W H Y I L I K E T H E T I M E L I N E
    • Easy to respond to - nice structure
    • Because it’s time based, it may catch things other retros won’t
    • Clusters happen by default
    • Tells a really crisp story about what happened
    

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    H O W / W H E N T O U S E T H E T I M E L I N E
    • Great for sprint retrospectives
    • Can be used fairly frequently
    • Works really well for root cause analysis of issues
    • Helps draw out disconnects on your team - did we perceive the
    same event differently? Why?
    

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30. R E T R O # 4
    Gratitude Retro
    

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    I N S T R U C T I O N S
    • Each person writes down 2-3 thank you notes for other people on the team
    • No clustering required! Just go around the room and read out the notes
    

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    W H Y I L I K E T H E
    G R AT I T U D E R E T R O
    • Helps build team chemistry
    • It feels nice to be nice to someone else
    • It’s okay to take a break from being critical
    and trying to fix things all the time!
    • Sometimes we take for granted that our
    teammates know we appreciate them
    

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    H O W / W H E N T O U S E T H E G R AT I T U D E R E T R O
    • Great for sprint retrospectives
    • Should be used as a change of pace retro.
    • You want the sentiments to be sincere, so beware of overuse
    • Use this if the team has been low energy, non-communicative
    • Be careful using this if the team has open conflict
    

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34. R E T R O # 5
    The Sailboat exercise
    

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35. @mad_typist bit.ly/JLslides
    I N S T R U C T I O N S
    • Draw a sailboat - this represents our team
    • 4 key metaphors here:
    • Wind in your sails - what drives us
    • Anchors - what’s holding us back
    • Hidden dangers - what’s lurking that will
    crash us
    • Promised land - where are we trying to go
    

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36. @mad_typist bit.ly/JLslides
    I N S T R U C T I O N S ( C O N T. )
    • You’ll want a large piece of paper to draw your sailboat on (or a large whiteboard space)
    • Practice drawing these ahead of time, if you want your picture to be less ugly than mine
    

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    W H Y I L I K E T H E S A I L B O AT E X E R C I S E
    • Identifies “big” things that are impacting your team
    • Helps re-center the team on the things that really matter
    • Can be used to root out long-running issues that have plagued your team
    • Powerful way to surface fears
    

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    H O W / W H E N T O U S E T H E S A I L B O AT E X E R C I S E
    • It can be used for sprint retrospectives, but it is more useful when deployed strategically
    • Roadmap planning
    • When you want to “reset” a team
    • When you feel like there are large issues affecting your team that aren’t getting addressed
    in the more tactical sprint retros
    

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39. F I N A L
    T H O U G H T S
    

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40. @mad_typist bit.ly/JLslides
    R E M E M B E R :
    • Retros only work if you do them, and do them regularly
    • Insights drawn out of retros have a cumulative effect
    • Don’t wait until things are going badly!
    • Identify 2-3 things max to address each week
    • Follow up on your action items - commit but don’t be afraid to change/
    rollback if the action item doesn’t work
    

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41. @mad_typist bit.ly/JLslides
    T H E S E W E R E J U S T A F E W E X A M P L E S
    • There are dozens of variants on these, plus other formats for you
    to use.
    • http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Retrospective_Plans
    • Think carefully about what you’re trying to draw out, and then
    choose a retro geared towards surfacing those particular bits of
    feedback/reaction
    

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42. @mad_typist bit.ly/JLslides
    B U T W H AT A B O U T… .
    • Remote teams?
    • Teams that are extra large?
    • Cross-functional teams?
    • Etc etc etc?
    

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43. A N D N O W, A R I N G I N G
    E N D O R S E M E N T F R O M M Y O L D
    T E A M M E M B E R … …
    

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44. Kenny H.
    “You know, I came in thinking this was going to
    be lame, but it was actually pretty good!”
    

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45. T H A N K Y O U !
    

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