Retrospectives - Become A Rockstar

Become a Retrospective
Rock Star
21 AGILE Experts Share Their Best Tips
Become a Retrospective Rock Star | 21 AGILE Experts Share Their Best Tips
Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION: The Best Way to Learn Is from the Best by David Horowitz................................... 3
TIP #1: 5 Rules for Distributed Retrospectives by AgileBill Krebs........................................................ 4
TIP #2: The Timebox and When to Neglect It by Andreas Schliep........................................................ 5
TIP #3: Vital Few Actions: Getting Things Done with Retrospectives by Ben Linders................. 6
TIP #4: On the Importance of Dwelling on What Actually Happened by Charlotte Malther........ 7
TIP #5: Dig Deeper and Don’t Settle for the Obvious by George Dinwiddie...................................... 8
TIP #6: Only People Can Make Your Retrospectives Great by Guilherme Motta............................. 9
TIP #7: How to Run Productive Intercultural, Distributed Retrospectives by Hugo Messer... 11
TIP #8: Stuck in a Rut? Use an Impediments Backlog by Jesse Fewell............................................. 12
TIP #9: Seek Clarity Not Bureaucracy by Jim Benson........................................................................... 13
TIP #10: An Argument for a Look Ahead by Jim York........................................................................... 14
TIP #11: Perform Management Retrospectives by Johanna Rothman.............................................. 16
TIP #12: Get Everyone Involved by Jutta Eckstein................................................................................... 17
TIP #13: The Importance of Regular Retrospectives by Kane Mar.................................................. 18
TIP #14: How to Run Amazing Virtual Retrospectives by Lisette Sutherland.................................. 19
TIP #15: The Top 4 Ways to Follow Through on Retrospectives by Luis Gonçalves...................... 20
TIP #16: How to Manage the Dreaded ...Awkward Silence... by Mandy Ross............................... 21
TIP #17: Focus on the Long-term, Not Just the Latest Sprint by Mario Lucero............................ 22
TIP #18: Pairing for Connection in Distributed Retrospectives by Mark Kilby............................. 23
TIP #19: Good Retrospective Facilitators Act Like Designers:

They Steal the Best Ideas from Every Place Possible by Oluf Nissen............................. 24
TIP #20: Use Ice-breakers to Overcome Resistance to Retrospectives by Phil Bowker............ 25
TIP #21: Appreciations by Susan DiFabio................................................................................................... 26
CLOSING: You’re on Your Way to Better Retrospectives............................................................... 28
Contributors................................................................................................................................................. 29
Follow Us / Contact Us.............................................................................................................................. 30
2
The Best Way to Learn Is to Learn from the Best.
You know how important retrospectives are. You’ve been told they drive continuous
improvement. You’ve been told they are how you get better as a team. You’ve been told
they are, in many ways, the core of agility.
And yet you also know how hard they are to get right.
That’s why we’re so thrilled to be sharing this e-book with you.
We asked twenty hand-picked agile experts a simple question: “What’s your favorite tip
about retrospectives?”
We didn’t know what type of responses we’d get, but we did know one thing: they would
David Horowitz
CEO and Co-Founder be well worth the wait.
Retrium
That’s because we know the people behind the tips. And they are all, individually, true
experts at agility.
Now that we’ve compiled all the advice into a single e-book, we couldn’t be happier with
the results.
If you take the time to carefully read each tip, we can virtually guarantee that you’ll be
leveling-up your retrospective skills in no time.
This e-book doesn’t need to be read cover-to-cover. Instead, we’d recommend reading
one tip at a time. Try it out with your team. See how it goes. Then, come back and read
the next tip. Rinse and repeat. Iterate and improve.
In time, we think you’ll think back to the moment you downloaded this e-book and smile
at how far you’ve come.
3
Become a Retrospective Rock Star | 21 Agile Experts Share Their Best Tips
5 Rules for Distributed Retrospectives

Distributed retrospectives require new approaches. Don’t settle for tools used
in co-located retrospectives like Post-it® notes. Explore the technology we have
available to make your retrospectives more effective.
Many are used to doing retrospectives face-to-face. We use low technology tools such as Post-it®
notes to help us facilitate effectively. However, as many teams shift to a primarily distributed
format, new tools and approaches become important.
The first hurdle is underestimating how distributed a team is. Some teams are only partially co-
located (and therefore partially distributed). Teams with this setup frequently ask their remote
employees to dial-in to a telephone number for meetings. This creates a difficult scenario in
which the people on the phone are easily forgotten, since the people in the room can easily see
and talk amongst themselves.
So even for partially distributed teams, we need to keep a few rules in mind:
RULE 1 Out of sight, out of mind. If your team is all face-to-face, you have it easy. If your team
TIP CONTRIBUTOR is all remote, you have it easy. But if you’re doing a hybrid meeting, pay extra attention to
AgileBill Krebs include the remote participants.
Agile Coach
TEKsystems RULE 2 Co-active media. The familiar ‘sticky notes’ we use in co-located retrospectives should
be replaced by an interactive tool. While it’s possible to have the facilitator write down things
on a slide as people talk, that gives the facilitator too much power and control. It’s better to
TIP #1 use a tool designed for simultaneous collaboration, such as Google Docs, or better yet, a tool
designed with retrospectives in mind such as Retrium. Having a few at hand will allow teams to
vary their approach from month to month to avoid burnout.
RULE 3 Dynamic motion. Individuals who are meeting face-to-face can take advantage of the
physical space around them by moving to different places in the room. This can provide visual
cues, wake up participants after a long day of meetings, and fit well with kinetic learners. If using
3d tools for collaboration such as Terf or AvayaLive engage, design the meeting with purpose to
allow significance to where people stand virtually. Some scripted tools such as the ‘Opinionator’
made good use of this to allow teams to vote with their feet.
RULE 4 Get some numbers. Many coaches have numerical assessments to review where
teams want to improve next. These may be surveys or assessments of different lengths, such
as the Comparative Agility Survey, agilityhealthSM radar, or Agile Journey Index. Whatever you
use, retrospectives may be a good time to gather or review data from such instruments. These
approaches may take more time than other retrospective techniques, and the numbers may
change more slowly, so numerical review can be done on a less frequent basis if needed.
RULE 5 Action Actions! Whether face-to-face or online, spend more time on planning and
doing actions and new ideas rather than simply listing and forgetting them. One way to do this
is to limit or quickly narrow discovery to two key items (picking one would take time to get just
the right item, so allowing two may speed that process). Teams can also have a mid-milestone
reminder update halfway through their sprint to see if they are making progress on their
actions. Start the next retrospective with a review of existing actions. New ideas may not even
be needed until the previous ones are completed or purposefully dropped.
Following ideas such as these for distributed retrospectives will keep teams improving!
4
The Timebox and When to Neglect It

As a rule of thumb, it’s important to timebox the retrospective so that it
doesn’t run into other meetings and take too much time. But sometimes it’s okay
to extend the retrospective!
All workshop facilitators have faced moments when they felt unsure whether to stick to the
agreed schedule or extend a meeting, workshop or other activity. The group was still busy, or in
a deadlock, and somehow it seemed inappropriate to close prematurely.
Timeboxes are a powerful instrument to bring structure, rhythm and focus in our work. They
consist of three dimensions: objective, resources and maximally allocated time span. The idea
is to accomplish the objective with the given resources in no longer than the time span. This
requires discipline and focus. Good facilitation helps the group to get there.
Scrum and other agile process frameworks place a very high value on timeboxes. ”All events are
timeboxed events“, says the Scrum Guide. Scrum Masters or how the team facilitators are called
are supposed to help the teams keep their timebox.
TIP CONTRIBUTOR That makes sense. As a rule of thumb for instance, we say that if the timebox for a planning
ANDREAS SCHLIEP meeting is about to run out, we probably have planned enough work for the next Sprint. If the
Executive Partner time-box for an estimation meeting runs out, we will probably not expect much more useful
DasScrumTeam AG outcome of the meeting.
So what about the retrospective? Generally, the retrospective is a timeboxed activity. You want
TIP #2 a good detailed agenda for your retrospective. You need to deal with deviations and probably
want an alternative sequence in case something took longer than expected.
So could we say that we should always observe the timebox, close the retrospective on time,
avoid reaching into other meetings? Yes and No. Here are a couple of suggestions regarding the
timebox for retrospectives.
First of all, plan for buffer time after the retrospective. Even if you finish on time, people might
need to recover from intense and sometimes emotional debates. Some facilitators place the
retrospective meeting at the end of a working day. But a longer break may suffice.
Second, allocate enough time to start with. It is possible to have a meaningful retrospective in
a couple of minutes. But think about your participant’s ”Agile fluency“, their interactions, the
expected range of topics. A short retrospective would probably not work after a failed customer
release.
Third, sharpen your senses. Is there anything crucial going on? Is the group about to “make the
magic happen”? Do you have the feeling that just a couple of more minutes could help to finally
address the elephant in the room, an unspoken issue, a breakthrough insight?
If so, you have two options to gracefully extend the timebox. If it is just about a couple of
minutes, just do it. Don’t make a fuss about asking the group or whatever. The participants
sense that there is something important going on, too. If you figure out that it is something that
will take more time to discuss, ask the group. You can add a smaller timebox with the option to
ask the group again.
Using timeboxes to put rhythm and structure in our activities is a great principle. Finding out
when to extend them in order to achieve a far better result requires a strong sense for the
group, facilitation experience and some courage. A little more time can be highly beneficial.
5
Vital Few Actions: Getting Things Done with Retrospectives

Don’t create too many action items. Change is hard and teams should focus on the
vital few actions they can actually accomplish.
The aim of an agile retrospective is to define actions for the next iteration that improve the
way of working and help teams to deliver more value to their customers. In agile, shorter
iterations are better, as they speed up feedback and enable teams to learn and improve quickly.
In short iterations there is limited room for change. You don’t want to have many actions,
preferably only 1 or 2. More is less, if you have too many actions then you will get less done.
Teams should focus on the vital few actions that they can do in the next iteration.
Destroying actions
The idea behind vital few actions is to destroy retrospective actions that deliver lower value, so
that only the essential ones remain which result in changes that stick. Different techniques can
be used to destroy retrospective actions:
Dot voting: Every team member gets a limited number of dots which they use to vote on
improvement actions. They cast their vote by putting dots on the action. Distributed teams
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
can use Google docs or sheets or online collaborations tools to vote. Votes should be given
BEN LINDERS to actions that provide the most value when done in the next iteration. Team members are
Independent Consultant
Agile, Lean, Quality and
encouraged to give multiple votes to an action, since that stimulates them to focus.
Continuous Improvement
Remove the bottleneck (lean): The team is asked to look at the main iteration flow. They start
from delivery and go back until the beginning to find the biggest bottleneck in their product
TIP #3 development lifecycle. Next they have to pick one action that help to reduce this bottleneck, and
throw away all other actions.
Devil’s and Angel’s advocate: The team starts by playing the role of the devil’s advocate. They
pick one action which they think has the least value for the team by bringing up reasons why it
wouldn’t work or doesn’t solve their problems. When only a few ideas are left they change their
role to the angel’s advocate to bring up ideas why these actions *would* work. Finally they pick
only one or two actions that they think give the most value in the next iteration.
Kill actions: Team members are asked to destroy actions that they think have the least
value. Initially every team member is allowed to veto against 1 action. Veto’s don’t have to
be motivated, since by voting against an action a team members are stating that they do not
support them and will not contribute to get the action done.
Teams travel their own agile journey

One of the benefits of retrospectives is that teams are empowered to take action. They can
decide which actions they will do. Agile teams are responsible for their own improvement
journey. By self-assessing how agile they are and designing valuable agile retrospectives teams
can become agile and lean.
The vital few actions retrospective exercise can be used within agile frameworks like Scrum,
SAFe, XP or Kanban to have teams agree upon the vital few improvement actions that they
will do.
6
On the Importance of Dwelling on What Actually Happened...

Many teams focus on creating a plan of action at the expense of gathering the right
data. Take time to focus on what actually happened before jumping ahead.
In my experience, the focus on spending enough (and exactly sufficient) time on “gathering
data” and “generating insight” is the most challenging part of retrospectives – to gather sufficient
data on what happened and discuss it. Many people would like to skip this part, or make it very
short, as they say ... we know already .... This is particularly true for people with an NT MBTI
preference* (of which there are many in IT jobs), who tend to jump straight to the conclusion.
They do not think it is important to look at the background and the past – this is what they
would typically do for both project and sprint retrospectives.
Therefore my favorite retrospectives tip is: Remember to dwell on what actually happened!
Spend the time required for the data collection part of the retro. Collect data on what happened
and discuss it. This data is key to the reflection, because it jogs the memory of each participant
and creates associations for the other participants. The result is a joint creation of the common
picture of what happened (in the sprint, in the project or in the period).
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
CHARLOTTE MALTHER I find that the best technique to promote this generation of shared memory is using a timeline
Partner drawn on a whiteboard or brown paper. The timeline visualises the process and it sparks
Malther Consulting aps participants’ memory. The use of colored post-its to describe the events of the period is an
efficient generator of relevant input in a short time. Add emotional seismographs to describe
the more emotional dimensions.
TIP #4
HOW:
Preparation
• Prepare the retrospective meeting by collecting facts. For a sprint retrospective this could
be e.g. sprint planning, grooming session, sprint review. For projects it could be: contracting,
steering committee meetings, startups, supplies, large meetings, etc
• Align expectations by sending out an informative meeting agenda with the purpose of the
meeting and a short agenda
• Create a pleasant atmosphere, for example, with food and drink Implementation
Implementation
• Create, if possible, an atmosphere of “time enough”
(even though there may not be time enough)
• Draw the time line on the board, brown paper or wallpaper
• Add milestones and other major fixed events
• First, let participants write good events in green, and bad incidents on red sticky notes
• Hereafter, let participants add their emotional seismograph on the board
• Discuss in groups or in plenary what key takeaways and conclusions the team sees
RESULT:
The discussion has been processed and focused on what actually happened, how we perceived
it; a common picture of how we saw the project is created, and conclusions on what to “keep”,
“more”, “less”, “stop” and “new” comes by itself.
7
Dig Deeper and Don’t Settle for the Obvious

Don’t settle for the obvious, surface issues. Dig deeper to address causes rather
than symptoms.
The heart of most continual improvement programs is the periodic retrospective. Often I
see teams focused on their obvious problems. “We should catch the bugs before we push to
production.” “We should do a better job at writing unit tests.” Or they focus on things they think
their management wants. “We should get more stories down each iteration.” They then decide
to catch more bugs, write better tests, and work faster.
There are two limitations to such a focus. First, these are things already on peoples’ minds, and
hardly require a retrospective to address. Second, and more importantly, these are things that,
if they are effective at all, are generally little more than band-aids on the current situation. The
team certainly has not been explicitly choosing to let bugs go to production, write poor tests,
or work slowly. Instead, the way that they are working contributes to the results that they see.
Any result that appears frequently, or persists over time, is undoubtedly receiving systemic
reinforcement.
TIP CONTRIBUTOR One approach to digging deeper to address causes rather than symptoms is the Five Whys
GEORGE DINWIDDIE technique. This involves asking “why” repeatedly until you get to a “root cause.” Why don’t we
Owner get more stories done? Because we’re chasing bugs released to production. Why do bugs get to
iDIA Computing, LLC
production? Because we break things without noticing. Why don’t we notice? Because our unit
tests aren’t good enough. Why aren’t they good enough? Because we’re trying to go faster.
TIP #5 Our systems of working rarely have a single root cause for any result. Instead, there are cycles
of actions that reinforce the result, making it more likely, and therefore more frequent or
prevalent. Rarely can we fix the cycle by just getting better at one step. Nor is the “fix” always
obvious without seeing the indirect effects. Without analysis, would you decide to address bugs
in production by removing the impetus to go faster?
I find Causal Loop Diagrams or Diagram of Effects to be useful tools for analysis. These
model the system of our work and help us see the reinforcing loops that produce the results
we don’t like. We can look for points in that loop where we can make a choice, thus breaking
the loop. We can see where we might add new influence paths to ameliorate loops that are
difficult to break.
This helps us address real causes, rather than proximate ones. The fix is unlikely to be in the
action right before the result we want to avoid. Instead, it’s in the arrangement of multiple
actions.
A good starting point for deeper understanding of this technique is found in Quality Software
Management: Volume 1, Systems Thinking by Gerald M. Weinberg. More recently he has released
How Software Is Built on LeanPub, covering the same ground. The ideas that Jerry presents in
these works have been enormously helpful for me. I think they might help you have more
productive retrospectives.
8
Only People Can Make Your Retrospectives Great

Retrospectives only work if the participants are comfortable and open with one
another. Make sure the people at the retrospective know and understand each
other to help make that happen.
“What’s the one thing you’d recommend to make my retrospectives better?” People awareness
makes better retrospectives! What is people awareness?
1. It should be clear WHO will be attending the retro (which is not always obvious!).
2. Each person should know, to a certain degree, the other attendees.
3. The focus of this specific retro should be clear.
4. It should be clear how this specific retrospective connects back to the objectives
and values of the group/team/product/project/department/organization.
Here’s why it’s so important to have people awareness.

TIP CONTRIBUTOR
GUILHERME MOTTA Retrospectives are a moment both for reflection and collective thinking. These seem like
Agile Coach opposites, and for this very reason it is very important that the group of attendees know and
understand each other well.
TIP #6 Here are a few techniques you can use to get to that point:
Peer Introduction
Split the group into teams of two and have each pair introduce themselves to each other. Then
go around the room and have everyone introduce the person they were paired with.
Adjective Introduction
Ask each participant to find an adjective that best represents them that also happens to start
with their initial [for example: Motta Modest].
2 Truths and 1 Lie

Have each participant introduce themselves by stating two truths and one lie about their lives.
Have the group guess which one the lie is.
Together, these activities are safety checks that allow the group to gain visibility into how
participants feel about bringing up sensitive topics in an open and respectful manner. When the
outcome of the safety check is mostly negative, you might consider pausing the retrospective. It
could be harmful for the group and lead to additional disagreements and misalignment between
the attendees.
It takes hard work to build a relationship, but it is fairly easy to destroy it. In cases where just
one or a few participants are not feeling comfortable, one of my preferred approaches is to go
around the table and ask each person to exercise their empathy and pretend that they are the
person that is not feeling safe. I ask two questions:
1. Why would this person not feel safe right now?
2. What could this person do in order to change this situation?
9
Another common scenario that can lead to unequal and uncomfortable discussion is when
someone in the group has a superior role or position within the organization. For instance,
when managers participate in the retrospective, groups tend to stay quiet and simply agree
with everything the manager says. In these cases, one option is to talk directly with the
manager to gauge if this person should not participate in the retrospective.
As a participant, you should be aware of the goal and purpose of the retrospective. If you’re
not sure, it is your responsibility to ask the facilitator for clarification. You want to ensure
you’re attending the retrospective for the same reason as the rest of the group. In most cases,
the main motivation will be related to continuous improvement (kaizen). The catch is: your
retrospectives will only work if PEOPLE care, understand why retrospectives are run, and
believe in their value.
10
How to Run Productive Intercultural,

Distributed Retrospectives
Retrospectives are a key part of a highly functioning distributed team, but are also
very difficult to run well. Take proactive and intentional steps to make them work.
Many teams have people working from different locations. Oftentimes, teams are completely
distributed, with team members from different cultures. This poses challenges to agile
retrospectives. I believe retrospectives are one of the most crucial parts of distributed
collaboration. Even if you don’t formally adopt agile or scrum, these two meetings will help the
team align and improve. Therefore, distributed teams must experiment with better ways of
running them.
In my current team at Ekipa.co, I work with colleagues in Holland (Piotr, my Polish co-founder
and myself), Turkey (Jennifer, my American co-founder) and India (my marketeers Raisa and
Shalini and our development team). Here are some of our cultural challenges: Piotr, Jennifer
and me are all outspoken; we tend to dominate conference calls and have a hard time changing
that. Raisa and Shalini are the opposite: they’re more silent, but have great ideas. Analyzing this,
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
we could reach all kinds of intercultural explanations (the degree of openness in each culture,
the power distance or hierarchical structures, etc). What’s more interesting is how to organize
Hugo Messer
Co-Founder ‘around’ this challenge. What worked for us:
Ekipa
1. W
e rotate the meeting facilitator role. This stimulates each team member to add her
viewpoints to the content of the retrospective as well as the process.
TIP #7
2. W
e have an online retrospective board (Linoit) on which team members stick ideas during
the week, prior to the retrospective. Inspired by Retrium, which serves this purpose even
better, we made three columns: start/continue/stop and ‘actions’. In the retrospective, we go
through all notes and define actions to be taken by a specific person in a specific sprint.
3. W
e made team agreements on how we work at the start of our collaboration. To structure
this, we used the Bridge Canvas, which covers everything from tools to process and team
spirit. At intervals, we look back at the team agreements during our retrospective.
4. R
egularly discuss the values of the team: openness and responsibility. We share stories
about these values at play in our work environment and how they helped us. This reinforces
people to become more open (and share more ideas) and take full accountability for their own
work. We found that it becomes easier to drop roles and titles, openly express our concerns
and share improvement ideas.
Obviously, it’s important to have a good conferencing setup. I believe you don’t need
anything fancy, but you do need a good quality HD webcam (I use a logitech cam) as well as
noise-reduction audio device (I use a Phoenix Duet). We use Skype for most meetings,
sometimes Zoom.
11
Stuck in a Rut? Use an Impediments Backlog

Running a retrospective is only step one in the improvement process. After a retro
is over, make sure you add your impediments to a backlog to track your progress.
Have you heard any of these complaints: “Since nothing ever changes, doing Retrospectives
every Sprint is just a waste of time”....”We only need partial ScrumMasters, since they basically
just run meetings”....”so much is wrong, where do we begin?”
Each one of these complaints centers around the insidious nature of impediments: they are
everywhere and they are often invisible. We know the agile mindset is one of aggressive,
continuous improvement. But how? One way to accelerate improvement is to visualize our
improvement workload, the exact same way we visualize the product workload. Here are three
ways to do just that:
Add Impediments to the Product Backlog. A strong product owner knows that investing into a
team yields better output. In fact, every iteration should result both in an increment of product,
and an increment of team improvement. So why not manage that work using the Product
Backlog? Have the team estimate the capacity required to solve an impediment or implement
TIP CONTRIBUTOR an improvement. Then, during regular conversation, the team explains to the Product Owner
JESSE FEWELL the ROI or payback period for investing that capacity.
Principal
Alacrity Consulting Alternatively, adopt an Impediments Backlog to visualize and prioritize everything we want
to fix. For issues that are bigger than your one team, have program leaders collaborate on a
“Kaizen Kanban” board, that organizes swim lanes for each group’s improvement activities.
TIP #8
Finally, Keep a Victory Log. Once an improvement is made, add it to the list of all the
team’s progress forward, no matter how small. Now you have data, which you can use to
justify ongoing investment: “As you can see, over the last year, we’ve burned 220 points on
improvements, which have yielded a gross increase in 1200 points of year-over-year capacity,
for a 5X ROI”. That kind of data will easily justify a full-time ScrumMaster or Kanban coach.
So...if you’re stuck in a rut, don’t just run a Retrospective, visualize all the good stuff that comes
out of a Retro. If you track your improvement as aggressively as you do your product, you’ll
have that high performing team even faster.
12
Seek Clarity Not Bureaucracy

Using the same retrospective technique every single time is boring and
prescriptive. Instead, try different approaches and you might be surprised by
what you find.
The rituals in our retrospectives often create a quick death of thought. We often enter the
retrospective with a format: What went well | What went poorly | What could be improved.
Three important questions, sure. But if that’s the only way you look at your work, they quickly
become myopic. You come expecting to fill in those columns, you will fill in those columns, and
then you will be done filling in... those columns. That’s as boring to do over time as that sentence
was to read (and write).
Instead, try to look at your work from different perspectives. Lay out the work that was done
over an importance and urgency or effort and impact matrix. Talk about your work (with actual
discussion) in a Lean Coffee. Instead of picking the thing that sucked the most, what if you picked
the thing that was the most awesome and asked “how can we improve that?” If you focused on
building strength rather than slaying yesterday’s dragon, what might that look like?
TIP CONTRIBUTOR Different perspectives, different questions, will give you clarity into your work. Simply filling the
Jim Benson same form will destroy your soul.
Founding Partner
Modus Institute
TIP #9
13
An Argument for a Look Ahead

Retrospectives look back in order to improve. What if we could improve before
we even start?
Retrospectives are great, no doubt about it. Retrospectives, along with the experiences that we
are retrospecting, are the fuel for our future improvement. But what about when we are just
starting out? Is there a place for a retrospective before we begin?
By definition, retrospectives are a look back. When we are just starting out, we don’t have a back
to look at. We only have our way forward. But which way forward... and how forward? Even with
agile and its short iterations, we typically wait to retrospect until the end of a iteration. (I know
we don’t have to wait until the end, but that is the way it is normally played.)
What if we started with a something like a retrospective at the beginning? Only we couldn’t call
it a retrospective because it wouldn’t be a look back now, would it? What if we started with a
“prespective”, a before look, a sort of “look before you leap” or “begin with the end in mind”?
What difference might a prespective make?
TIP CONTRIBUTOR Before diving into the possibilities, let’s define prespective.
Jim YORK
Prespective |prē’-spĕk’tĭv|
Agile Coach
FoxHedge Ltd adj.
1. A look ahead
noun
TIP #10 1. An forward-looking activity in which future possibilities are considered with intent to influence
focus or direction
Sounds a bit like a kickoff or a launch doesn’t it? However, kickoffs or launches tend to focus on
the thing that we’re creating rather than the process by which we will create it. Instead of looking
at the what, a prespective would look exclusively at the how, and as we do with thewhat, we also
ask the question “why?” In fact, the question “why” is at the root of both what and how, if you
think about it.
Now, there might be an objection here that good kickoffs do include the consideration of how
and why. But seriously, when was the last time you experienced a truly good kickoff?... and one
where there was an intentional pause to consider improvements to current process before the
start? This part is key. It must be intentional and a pause, not just lip service or a jumping on the
bandwagon of the latest improvement fad.
We are talking about the gap between where you are and where you want to be with your
process – your how. The prespective is a serious consideration of the improvements that you
wish to see and why those improvements are important.
“Knowing why facilitates buy-in”

Now, to what difference a prespective might make... if you know why the improvements are
important, it becomes easier to get buy-in from stakeholders. Stakeholder buy-in to the reason
for a change is key to successful change.
14
“Vision creates focus”

Knowing the reason for a change also makes it possible to paint a vision of a better future that
will result from the change. This vision creates focus for the team.
“Defining success helps us to know when we’ve reached the goal”

A vision also helps in defining success. The definition of success answers the question, “How
will we know when we’ve got there?”
“Metrics facilitate inspection”

A definition of success also helps in identification of meaningful metrics to measure progress
toward and ultimate realization of the vision.
At its core, a prespective simplifies the problem space. By identifying a strategic improvement
target, the prespective narrows the possible solution sets. The constraints on the problem
space actually makes it easier for the team to construct experiments for improvement. In
other words, guided by the prespective, the team designs experiments intended to move the
needle in the right direction.
“Hypotheses can be wrong!”

Now for a word of caution: always remember that a prespective results in a hypothesis based
on a perceived improvement opportunity. The perception of the “right” improvement target
is colored by past experience, beliefs, bias, preferences... after all, the hypothesis is created
by people, who by their nature, are imperfect. If we were perfect, we would already have an
optimal process. So, the hypothesis might be... wrong!
“Learning loops enable new hypotheses”

Given that we might have picked the wrong target, we now need to make sure our process
includes a couple of learning loops — one that assesses the impact of our experiment in
process improvement on the intended target... and a second loop to reconsider the validity of
the target hypothesis. These looks at the results of our experiments?... yes, you’ve got it, these
looks are what we call... retrospectives. And so we begin. Are you ready?
15
Perform Management Retrospectives

Even as a manager, it’s important to run retrospectives to ensure you are creating
the best environment for the people doing the work.
When we consider retrospectives, we most often think of teams and what they can learn
from the previous chunk of time or activities. That’s great. It’s not enough. Management
retrospectives can be even more valuable.
Managers create the environment in which people can succeed. When managers do the same
things over and over, without reviewing the effects of their actions, they might not create the
best possible environment.
One manager, Tilly, was concerned that her boss Clive, kept asking her teams to work on more
than one project at a time. Clive wanted to see “progress” on everything. Tilly had explained
that multitasking didn’t work. Clive kept asking for multiple projects. Tilly decided to conduct a
retrospective with her peers and Clive.
During the 45-minute retrospective, which covered the previous two weeks, Clive saw data that
TIP CONTRIBUTOR showed the teams slowed their work when they tried to work on multiple projects during the
JOHANNA ROTHMAN same weeks. Tilly and her peers compared the teams’ progress when they only worked on one
Owner project for a given week.
Rothman Consulting
Group, Inc. Once Clive had the data, now they all had to problem-solve together. They developed several
ideas that the teams experimented with over several weeks. They decided on one alternative
that helped Clive see “progress” on more than one project per team, and helped the teams
TIP #11 make the progress they wanted.
Management retrospectives help people see what is working, what is not, and to generate
alternatives as a team. You might not need a management retrospective every week. If you
want to create the best environment for the people doing the work, consider a retrospective
once a month.
My best tip is to perform management retrospectives. You don’t need to spend a ton of time,
and you will gain tremendous value.
16
Get Everyone Involved

Even as a manager, it’s important to run retrospectives to ensure you are creating
the best environment for the people doing the work.
Every so often people are asking me how they can ensure that not always the same people
contribute and that every participant of a retrospective is engaged. The drawbacks of the non-
engagement is obvious, these are mainly the missing perspectives of everyone and the lack of
buy in of the ones not taking part actively. In this contribution I want to explain what to watch
out for and what to do in order to get everyone involved.
DIFFERENT NEEDS
“Every person obtains information differently. Some people, known as visuals, learn most
effectively by watching, auditories, by listening; and kinesthetic, through action” (Eckstein, 2004).
Moreover, extroverts are most likely happy to talk out loud even in a larger group, whereas
introverts are hesitant to speak up even in a small group. “In order to discover each team
member’s competence and comfort levels, use various modes of communication that address
different persons differently, respecting their unique sensory modalities” (Eckstein, 2010).
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
The Facilitators as a Balancing Force
JUTTA ECKSTEIN
Owner, Independent According to theme-centered-interaction by Ruth Cohn for every meeting it is important to
Coach, Consultant, understand that there is a need to balance a triangle consisting of I (how each individual is
and Trainer here and what he/she needs), we (how are we as a group here and what do we need), and it
IT Communication
(what is the topic at hand and how can be ensured it is “solved”) (Cohn, TCI). This triangle is
surrounded by the environment (Cohn calls this the globe), which is in which the space, time,
and circumstances the meeting takes place. Now, balancing does not mean to ensure that we
TIP #12 put the same emphasis at all times to I, we, and it. In order to make progress the triangle needs
to tip from one corner to the other, putting an emphasis at the different corners in turn. If we
would ensure a balance at all time, we would be stuck. And if we put an emphasis at only one
thing e.g. at the topic only by ignoring the needs of the individual and the group, we would be
stuck as well.
Change working groups sizes and approaches

The most powerful and at the same time easiest thing to do is to change the number of people
working together during the retrospective. For example, ask a question, i.e. “Consider various
ways we communicate in the team. Which are the most effective?” on which participants are
invited to reflect individually. Then ask them to share their ideas in pairs, before they should look
for common themes and striking differences in fours. This small group is then invited to present
their findings to the whole group.
Change the number of people working on something from individuals, to very small
groups, to small groups, and finally to the whole group.
You might want to combine this with changing the working style – or without the combination
just change the working style from time to time. Using the example above, ask the individuals
to answer the question in writing e.g. on stickies, then invite the pair to share their thoughts by
talking it through. And finally ask the small group of four to come up with a drawing that reflects
their findings. Of course another idea would be inviting them to act out their findings.
Change between working styles. That is between talking, writing, drawing, acting.
17
The Importance of Regular Retrospectives

Don’t put off the retrospective simply because it’s hard. Problems don’t
solve themselves!
David Horowitz of Retrium, sent me an email asking 20 people for their favourite tip about
retrospectives.
I thought on this for a while and couldn’t think of a single thing. After all, there are many good
areas to discuss ... there are different types of retrospectives, interesting facilitation techniques,
and useful ways to structure difficult conversations. All of these different topics are all
worthwhile, and how could I choose only one favourite tip from a sea of ideas? There were just
too many options for me to be able to make a decision.
I looked at David’s email for each day for several days, and each day I thought it was too difficult
and moved on to something that didn’t require a decision.
Rather than try and address the problem, I put it off. And, as expected, the problem didn’t
get solved.
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
Once I understood my behaviour the topic for this article became clear... Retrospectives need
Kane Mar
to happen on a regular consistent basis.
Founder, Agile and
Scrum Trainer
Scrumology Pty Ltd Having a Retrospective at the end of each and every Sprint, forces the team to reflect on their
behaviour, teamwork, and output during the Sprint. Without a regular Retrospective, teams can
avoid difficult topics or behaviours and, it’s only possible to address the teams problems once
TIP #13 we know what they are.
Many teams will stop having a Retrospective when everything is working well. This is often a
mistake. Once the regularity of the Retrospective is lost, the team no longer have a forum to
discuss any issues that may arise. It’s important to have a Retrospective when the team has
problems, but it’s just as important when things are working well... even if it’s just going to
the nearest coffee shop with the team and having a casual conversation for 30 minutes.
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How to Run Amazing Virtual Retrospectives

Virtual teams need retrospectives too. To run them effectively, minimize
background noise, use great equipment, embrace video, and elect a facilitator.
Co-located teams get continuous feedback because they are together a lot. Virtual teams need
continuous feedback too. One way to create a feedback loop on remote teams is by hosting
regular retrospectives.
On every team, there are small frustrations that can build up over time. Things that might seem
too trivial to bring up in the moment, or that don’t get brought up because of time constraints.
Regularly scheduled retrospectives gives the team a set of times where they can raise and
discuss issues together.
The process for hosting a remote retrospective is similar to hosting it in person except that a
virtual tool (like Retrium, ahem) is used to collect thoughts rather than walls with sticky notes or
flipcharts. There are many styles of retrospectives, but a high-level overview of the process looks
like this: The team generally begins with a silent brainstorm to collect topics. The topics are then
categorized, voted on, discussed one by one until the team runs out of either topics or time.
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
Lisette Sutherland Being in the same room with people during a retrospective is powerful because of the high-
Director bandwidth communication that we have. We can see if someone is tired or frustrated. We can
Collaboration pat people on the back or give them high fives. When we go remote, we want to simulate that
Superpowers! high-bandwidth environment as much as possible.
My top tips for doing this are to minimize background noise, use great equipment,
TIP #14 embrace video, and elect a facilitator.
Online conversations quickly become frustrating when the sound quality is bad. If we want to
create a smooth communication experience online, we need to have quiet backgrounds. The
barking dog and cafe sounds are fun and amusing at first, but they quickly become distracting
interruptions for team conversations. Don’t be afraid to invest in great noise canceling headsets,
webcams, video software and conference room equipment. Technology has come a long way in
the last five years and prices are more accessible.
Pro Tip: choose a video
tool where you can still Because the nonverbal communication is one of the more important aspects of co-located
see each other when retrospectives, we can turn the webcams on when we go remote. As humans, we’re designed
you share your screen. to react to each other visually. When we can’t see each other, we quickly become distracted
Remote teams do a lot and detached. Using video helps to humanize the conversation and creates a more engaging
of screensharing, and team atmosphere. When we can see each other, we can gauge the moods of our colleagues and
as soon as we can’t see better observe how everyone is doing. It also helps the flow of the conversation because we can
each other, many of us
see when others want to speak, or when people are shaking their heads to agree or disagree.
lose focus.
Online or not, electing someone to facilitate the retrospective gives the process structure and
can help focus the team on the agenda. Facilitators are there to create a safe space for honest
feedback. A good facilitator can ensure that everyone gets a chance to speak and that there is
follow-up on action items.
Retrospectives are a vital part of the feedback loop on remote teams. Working together in
the same space gives us a lot of contextual feedback and opportunities to share concerns
and delights. On a remote team, we need to create a space for these things to be brought
out into the open. Scheduling regular times to check in with each other gives remote teams
the opportunity to fine tune relationships. Investing the time to create a high-bandwidth
environment will encourage profitable conversations.
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The Top 4 Ways to Follow through on Retrospectives

The retrospective itself isn’t enough to achieve continuous improvement. You have
to follow through on the promises made during a retro to be truly effective.
When I was asked, “what’s the best tip you have for effective retrospectives?” my mind
immediately turned to the best way to follow through on your retrospective promises. There are
four different techniques that I’d like to share.
THE AMBASSADOR TECHNIQUE

Using the Ambassador technique, the team nominates someone to be a “Topic Ambassador”
for each item on its action plan. This person is responsible for “owning” his or her action item
and must ensure the team does everything it can to follow through on it during the upcoming
iteration. Making an individual responsible for an action item encourages ownership of the
retrospective.
ADD THE RETROSPECTIVE ACTIONS TO THE TOP OF THE SPRINT BACKLOG

To keep retrospective action items fresh on everyone’s mind, I find it very useful to put them
on at the top of the sprint backlog. This technique requires that the Product Owner is closely
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
aligned with the team and that he understands how important it is to continuously improve
Luis Gonçalves
Agile Coach, Author, by tackling the team’s main issues. I usually coach my teams to select one single action item,
and Managing Director and together with the Product Owner move it to the top of the sprint backlog. By using this
Oikosofy approach, the story with the most importance each sprint is the highest priority item from
the previous retrospective. This approach guarantees that the team does not forget their
retrospective agreements during the sprint.
TIP #15
USE THE DAILY SCRUM TO ASK ABOUT PROGRESS ON YOUR RETROSPECTIVE ACTION PLAN
Starting the daily scrum by asking about progress made on retrospective action items is another
way to keep the retrospective at the front of the team’s mind. This might seem very easy and
simple, but it’s hard to understand how powerful it is until you try it out. And it becomes even
more powerful in combination with the Ambassador technique, since the team can ask each
Topic Ambassador for updates, and then make sure that person is working on it.
As the Scrum Master, it is not enough to simply ask the responsible person for an update, it
is also important to facilitate the process of helping that person fix the issue (or else, help the
person identify the individual who can fix it). If you’re lucky, small problems may be solved by
the next daily scrum. Otherwise, make sure to continually follow up on each subsequent day to
find a way to solve this problem as soon as possible.
CREATE A KANBAN BOARD FOR RETROSPECTIVE ACTION ITEMS

Some time ago on one of my coaching gigs, I created an idea board and asked my teams to put
potential retrospective topics on it throughout the sprint. The board was useful because it gave
the team a space to record its improvement ideas as they thought of them, rather than having
to wait for the retrospective. But it wasn’t good enough! Later I realized that although the teams
used the idea board to collect and record their thoughts, they failed to follow up with most of
them! So, I replaced the idea board with a kanban board (which has three columns: “To Do”, “In
Progress”, and “Done”). All ideas generated were put in the “To Do” column. The kanban board
provided context: these were action items, not merely ideas.
There are many other ways to make sure teams will follow up with their agile retrospectives, but
I believe these four techniques will give you plenty of ideas to help you follow-up on your agile
retrospective action plans.
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How to Manage the Dreaded ...Awkward Silence...

Good retrospectives lead to difficult conversations, which lead to awkward
silences. Embrace them. They tend to lead to valuable contributions.
Being spontaneously honest and articulate at the same time is difficult, especially for introverts.
It’s no secret that software engineers tend to lean toward that part of the personality spectrum,
which can make the retrospective the most emotionally draining ceremony in Agile. This can
lead even the most high performing dispersed teams to uncomfortable lulls in conversation:
the ...Awkward Silence....
In confronting ...Awkward Silence..., it’s supremely easy to let the few, same well intentioned
extroverts dominate this important discussion at the end of each Sprint. They are always willing,
and it’s an easy way to manage it, but this makes your retrospective limited in perspective. On
the other hand, prodding quiet people into saying things for the sake of saying something is
not useful and does nothing other than fill up time, annoy everyone in the meeting and creates
waste in the ceremony. However, we know that if people take advantage of being remote as a
way to not participate is also toxic to the team dynamic. So, what to do? As with most things,
there is a range of solutions that you can consider.
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
Mandy Ross At Sococo we have a complex product and our team is particularly thoughtful, so most team
Director of Marketing members like to process their ideas and then articulate them as clearly as possible. We realized
and Agile Practices
that in many cases, we need to work through the ...Awkward Silence… by being patient, letting
Sococo
them play themselves out and just giving people a little time to think. Eventually, a contribution
will usually come through, and that will usually lead to further discussion among the team.
TIP #16 That being said, there are limits to everything, including the amount of time you have in
your retrospective. Your retrospective leader must ensure that the ...Awkward Silences… are
time-boxed. When the time-box limit is hit, it may be necessary to call on specific people to
break the ...Awkward Silence.... In this case, make sure that 1. you ask a specific question, and
2. you don’t pick on the same people at each time-box limit. It’s tempting to target the notorious
under-participators, and that’s not really a fair practice as it may alienate some team members.
The retrospective leader needs to ensure that the call-upons are evenly distributed, so that
all perspectives are shared and the team can move forward in a more wholistically well-
informed way.
It’s completely normal for distributed teams to experience ...Awkward Silence.... It may happen
periodically or chronically, and as long as it is acknowledged, understood and managed, your
team may actually benefit from it!
21
Focus on the Long-term, Not Just the Latest Sprint

To solve systemic issues, you need to focus on more than recent history. Look
back on previous sprints to gain extra insights into the truly tricky problems.
Many issues that teams face are systemic. They recur time and again, sprint in and
sprint out. Because of their systemic nature, teams have the tendency to overlook them in
their retrospectives. They are just “part of working here.” That doesn’t have to be so!
To help overcome systemic issues, I recommend using a great exercise called

“The Time Machine”.
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
Mario Lucero
Bilingual Enterprise
Agile Coach STRATEGY
Hublance The idea of this activity is to travel back in time to four sprints ago (you can choose another
number of sprints, but sometimes it’s hard to remember what happened more than four
TIP #17 sprints ago, so be careful not to overdo it!).
PROCEDURE
• Explain the activity Start the exercise by having the Scrum Master explain that the goal is
to look back in time to find systemic issues that seem to recur from sprint to sprint.
• Create a timeline of events Have each team member add issues to the timeline for each
sprint under consideration.
• Vote Have the group vote on the issues that are most relevant to them (I usually use two
votes per person that team members can distribute as they wish, i.e. all votes on one issue
or one vote on two issues).
• Create action items The last part is to create an action item for the two issues that bubbled
up to the top (the issues that got the most votes). I strongly recommend having an individual
take ownership over each action item to ensure follow-through. Finally, set a deadline so that
actions don’t drag on forever!
THE RESULT
The Time Machine technique really isn’t that different in form from other popular retrospective
techniques. What makes it different in practice is the mindset of thinking back in time.
By doing so, your team can solve systemic issues instead of focusing exclusively on the present.
Give it a shot. Time travel isn’t impossible after all!
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Pairing for Connection in Distributed Retrospectives

To ensure everyone on a distributed retrospective is able to contribute, try the
“buddy system”.
In our distributed retrospectives, one of our biggest challenges is to make sure everyone
is “connected” in the retrospective. Can everyone equally jump into the conversation? Can
everyone “raise a hand” to call attention to their point or to queue their input on a topic? Can
everyone equally vote on a next step in the retrospective? Can we all see when people are
engaged or not? In my experience, the activity of pairing with another person can help us
answer “yes” to these questions.
For retrospectives, pairing allows you to maintain a connection with a remote person, to help
them remain engaged and have input on what the rest of the team is doing and deciding.
There are two ways I have found pairing to be valuable in distributed retrospectives: pairing of
participants and pairing of facilitators.
First, let us discuss some of the different types of retrospectives that could occur. One of the
most common is what I like to call the “satellite” distributed retrospective. In this situation,
TIP CONTRIBUTOR you may have the main team in one location with one or more remote team members
Mark Kilby participating. As we set the stage1 for the retrospective and discuss working agreements, I’ll
Enterprise Agile Coach talk to participants about the value of a “Buddy System”2 and ask if each person in the room
Sonatype
can be a buddy to one of the remote people. This means that the person in the room will have
a laptop with a chat application that has a window dedicated to that remote individual. Then if
the remote person has difficulty getting the attention of the team or the facilitator, they can ask
TIP #18 for the aid of their buddy.
A second type of distributed retrospective is the “globular cluster” where you have different
groups co-located at different locations. As the main facilitator in one location, I will ask for
a volunteer co-facilitator at the other location a few days before the retrospective. I then
meet with the co-facilitator to talk through my plan for the retrospective, get their input, and
even come up with a backup plan3 in case we need to change direction. Then, during the
retrospective, I will frequently check in with my co-facilitator to either ask them to run parts of
the retrospective (so “control” of the retrospective is also distributed and allows everyone to
feel they are all equally distributed) or to check-in with the body language of the participants at
the other locations, or to help me monitor the chat backchannel4 for other discussions to bring
into the verbal conversations.
Whether I’m pairing with a co-facilitator or just pairing with another participant in a distributed
retrospective, finding ways to “pair” in a distributed retrospective can dramatically improve the
engagement and outcomes for your distributed teams.
23
Good Retrospective Facilitators Act Like Designers:

They Steal the Best Ideas from Every Place Possible
Retrospectives can be boring if you do the same thing sprint in and sprint out.
Mix up your facilitation technique, or even your facilitator, to keep things fresh.
Starting out as a retrospective facilitator can be daunting. What if the team doesn’t engage?
What if my facilitation doesn’t work? How would I deal with tough interpersonal dynamics that
might surface? What if the team gets bored after a while? These are probably thoughts that you
have had at one point or another. I certainly have. And I still do from time to time.
What helped me get started was to facilitate with a small team: One person would lead, two
people would help by scribing, watching the room for energy, etc. That way everyone got to
practice a specific area of facilitation in a safe, supportive way. Over time we rotated through
the roles. You can steal this idea.
If you facilitate retrospectives in an Agile context, it may be difficult to keep them fresh. In
TIP CONTRIBUTOR addition to looking for new activities you can use (I won’t make a list of places to go for that
Oluf Nissen here – Google is your friend), I will ask you to consider taking a break from retrospectives
Software Design for a bit. Maybe skip an iteration or two, then start again. Breaks in a routine can be good
Engineer for rejuvenation. Think of it as a kind of “vacation.” You might use the break to look for new
HP Inc. activities or for talking to other facilitators about their ideas for renewal. You can steal this idea.
Let’s say you have found a new activity that you want to try with your team. Instead of using
TIP #19 it right away, see if you can leave it for a bit. You may find that by letting activity “simmer” a
bit in your mind, you can improve on it and adapt it for your team’s specific needs. You might
encounter situations in the day-to-day work that can help you shape the activity – custom-fit it,
so to speak. If you forget about the activity over time, that might be an indicator that it wouldn’t
work with your team or your facilitation style. You can steal this idea.
Of course, all of the above isn’t really stealing ideas. It’s learning about what works and what
doesn’t. And that is probably the heart of retrospective facilitation.
24
Use Ice-breakers to Overcome Resistance to Retrospectives
To overcome resistance to the retrospective, try icebreakers.
There are many techniques that help a facilitator follow the basic process of a retrospective;
gather data, generate insights, prioritise the points arising, identify solutions, define actions to
help achieve those solutions.
However for this process to be truly effective requires the full commitment and participation
of all attendees. This isn’t always easy to achieve; often development team members
inexperienced in Agile see the retrospective as the least meaningful of the Scrum ceremonies,
and it’s frequently the first ceremony dropped once delivery pressure kicks in. Further,
even when you convince the team to attend your retro, you can never be sure of everyone’s
commitment.
To help overcome this there’s a simple technique a facilitator can use to engage the
participants’ attention: the ice-breaker. Often overlooked, the ice-breaker can make the
difference between an engaging discussion with a useful outcome, and a group of people
sitting in a meeting room wishing they were elsewhere.
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
The objective of an ice-breaker is straightforward; to help remove barriers that prevent
Phil Bowker
Scrum Master attendees from becoming participants, and in doing so allow attendees to express
M-Team themselves freely.
You can find many resources on the web that give great ideas for ice-breakers, ranging from
TIP #20 simple, human interest questions to be answered just by going round the group, such as “If you
could holiday anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?”, or, “What’s your favourite
item of clothing and why?” etc., to more complex games that require materials and group work.
If you know your team you may know immediately what to ask, but in any case search the web,
you’ll find plenty of ideas.
However for correctly-sized Scrum teams I recommend keeping ice-breakers simple,

particularly if working with inexperienced teams. If you make the ice-breaker process too
complex you risk disengagement from the start, especially with reluctant participants.
Even when you choose a simple ice-breaker question, remember to time-box it and don’t let
the conversation drift. Avoid letting someone answer at length or go off topic; you’re looking for
open and honest responses that bring smiles to the group, help relax the atmosphere yet still
fit into your retro time-box without negatively impacting the main objective of the retro.
Finally, ice-breakers are often considered only at the start of a retro to ... well ... break the
ice! But retros don’t always go to plan, sometimes communication channels can freeze mid-
meeting. If this happens don’t be frightened to throw in another (simple) ice-breaker to help
warm up those communication pipes! Or, if you’re running a longer retro and plan to have a
break think about using an ice-breaker to kick off the second part of the meeting, too.
25
Appreciations
If you find your retrospectives focusing on the negative, add time to do
appreciations. They make us feel better!
What is my favorite retrospective facilitation technique? That’s tough – there are so many good
ones, but there is one that stands out as being simple to facilitate, yet powerful in effect. It is
the “Appreciation”.
An appreciation is a statement in this form:

Person A says, “(Person B) I appreciate you for (doing a specific thing) because it helped me (in a
specific way).
For example:
Pat says, “Alex, I appreciate you for making our database conversation visible on the
whiteboard because it helped me see that there was more than one possible solution.”
Such statements can be powerful for both the giver and the receiver.
An appreciations activity works like this. The facilitator announces that it is time to offer
TIP CONTRIBUTOR
appreciations and then describes the process. The rules are:
Susan DiFabio
Agile Coach • Anyone can start by offering an appreciation (in the above format).
Susan K DiFabio
Consulting, LLC • Anyone can go next; i.e., statements are offered at random.
• Each person may offer zero, one, or many appreciations; it is an opportunity, not an obligation.
TIP #21
It may take a few moments of silence before the first person speaks as people collect their
thoughts. Statements continue from random team members until they naturally die down
and stop. After a few moments of silence the facilitator pronounces the appreciations
activity closed.
Why appreciations? Because they make us feel good! When we feel good all kinds of good
things happen – we sit taller; we breath deeper; we feel more empowered; we are more
creative; we are more empathic; we are more resilient.
Appreciations at the close of a retrospective are a great way to send the team back into the real
world feeling empowered. Appreciations at the beginning of a retrospective are a great way to
close the iteration work and set the team up for the retrospective work ahead.
“Whoa” you might be thinking. “That sounds much too touchy-feely. My team won’t go for that.
What if someone is left out? Won’t it seem contrived?”
Those are natural concerns, and I respect them. It is sad but true that speaking in explicitly
appreciative terms is outside the norm of most business cultures.
However, in my experience these don’t actually turn out to be problems. People often get over
the touchy-feely discomfort once you get them to try it. The good feeling they experience tends
to outweigh the initial awkwardness. Team members tend to look out for one another. They
notice when someone is being left out (even though there is no official tally) and make an effort
to appreciate that person. The facilitator can help make sure the offerings are genuine and not
contrived by attending to psychological safety issues and avoiding overuse.
26
Here are some facilitation keys:
• Announce the activity with confidence. If you don’t think it is weird, they won’t think it is weird.
• Announce the start and end of the activity. It indicates the specific time set aside where rules
for “normal” conversation have been suspended.
• Model the behavior by being the first to offer an appreciation.
• Resist the temptation to go round the room and have everyone speak! It must be seen as an
opportunity not an obligation; it must be safe for someone to remain silent if they so choose.
• If no one has anything to offer after waiting a few minutes, simply close the activity. Consider
it data and follow up later to search for the reason – lack of safety? Team at odds with one
another? Exhaustion? Something else?
• Avoid overuse. Use it sparingly enough that it feels like a treat, not an obligation.
In my experience appreciations can have a dramatic effect on the team culture, not to mention
the fact that they make me feel good too.
27
You’re on Your Way to Better Retrospectives!
The tips in this book were brought to you by some of the best agile minds in the
industry. So give them a shot. We think you’ll see they are well worth the effort.
And while you’re at it, we’d love for you to give Retrium a try! It’s a tool that helps you
run easy, fun, and engaging retrospectives.
Your first 2 retrospectives are 100% free!
retrium.com
28
Contributors
AgileBill Krebs – Agile Coach at TEKsystems
Andreas Schliep – Executive Partner at DasScrumTeam AG
Ben Linders – Independent Consultant in Agile, Lean, Quality and Continuous Improvement
Charlotte Malther – Partner at Malther Consulting aps
George Dinwiddie – Owner at iDIA Computing, LLC
Guilherme Motta – Agile Coach
Hugo Messer – Co-Founder at Ekipa
Jesse Fewell – Principal at Alacrity Consulting
Jim Benson – Founding Partner at Modus Institute
Jim York – Agile Coach at FoxHedge Ltd
Johanna Rothman – Owner at Rothman Consulting Group, Inc.
Jutta Eckstein – Owner, Independent Coach, Consultant, and Trainer at IT communication
Kane Mar – Founder, Agile and Scrum Trainer at Scrumology Pty Ltd
Lisette Sutherland – Director at Collaboration Superpowers!
Luis Gonçalves – Agile Coach, Author, and Managing Director at Oikosofy
Mandy Ross – Director of Marketing and Agile Practices at Sococo
Mario Lucero – Bilingual Enterprise Agile Coach at Hublance
Mark Kilby – Enterprise Agile Coach at Sonatype
Oluf Nissen – Software Design Engineer at HP Inc.
Phil Bowker – Scrum Master at M-Team
Susan DiFabio – Agile Coach at Susan K DiFabio Consulting LLC
29
Follow us
Contact us
customerlove@retrium.com
Footnotes
Page 7
*Myers Briggs Type Indicator has for major preferences (NT, SJ, SP and NF). The NT are the strategists.
Page 20
1 Diana Larsen and Esther Derby. Book: Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. Chapter 1 (and throughout the
book) describes one of the five stages in the retrospective framework described by the authors is “set the stage”.
2 Mark Kilby, blog post on http://markkilby.com: “Remotely Agile: The Buddy System”.
3 Chapter 2 of the Agile Retrospectives book talks about selecting 2 activities for each stage of your retrospective as part
of your backup plan.
4 Mark Kilby, blog post on http://markkilby.com: “Why you want a Backchannel in distributed meetings”.
References
Page 8
“Quality Software Management: Volume 1, Systems Thinking” by Gerald M. Weinberg.
“How Software Is Built” by Gerald M. Weinberg, on LeanPub.
Page 14
(Eckstein, 2014): Jutta Eckstein, Agile Software Development in the Large, Dorset House, 2004.
(Eckstein, 2010): Jutta Eckstein, Agile Software Development with Distributed Teams, Dorset House, 2010.
(Cohn, TCI): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Themecentered_interaction
© 2016 Retrium, LLC

Retrospectives - Become A Rockstar

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Become a Retrospective

TIP #1: 5 Rules for Distributed Retrospectives by AgileBill Krebs........................................................ 4

TIP #2: The Time­box and When to Neglect It by Andreas Schliep........................................................ 5

TIP #8: Stuck in a Rut? Use an Impediments Backlog by Jesse Fewell............................................. 12

TIP #9: Seek Clarity Not Bureaucracy by Jim Benson........................................................................... 13

TIP #10: An Argument for a Look Ahead by Jim York........................................................................... 14

TIP #11: Perform Management Retrospectives by Johanna Rothman.............................................. 16

TIP #12: Get Everyone Involved by Jutta Eckstein................................................................................... 17

TIP #13: The Importance of Regular Retrospectives by Kane Mar.................................................. 18

TIP #14: How to Run Amazing Virtual Retrospectives by Lisette Sutherland.................................. 19

TIP #18: Pairing for Connection in Distributed Retrospectives by Mark Kilby............................. 23

TIP #19: Good Retrospective Facilitators Act Like Designers:

TIP #20: Use Ice-breakers to Overcome Resistance to Retrospectives by Phil Bowker............ 25

TIP #21: Appreciations by Susan DiFabio................................................................................................... 26

CLOSING: You’re on Your Way to Better Retrospectives............................................................... 28

Follow Us / Contact Us.............................................................................................................................. 30

The Best Way to Learn Is to Learn from the Best.

That’s why we’re so thrilled to be sharing this e-book with you.

5 Rules for Distributed Retrospectives

The Timebox and When to Neglect It

Vital Few Actions: Getting Things Done with Retrospectives

Teams travel their own agile journey

On the Importance of Dwelling on What Actually Happened...

Dig Deeper and Don’t Settle for the Obvious

Only People Can Make Your Retrospectives Great

2. Each person should know, to a certain degree, the other attendees.

3. The focus of this specific retro should be clear.

Here’s why it’s so important to have people awareness.

2 Truths and 1 Lie

1. Why would this person not feel safe right now?

2. What could this person do in order to change this situation?

How to Run Productive Intercultural,

Stuck in a Rut? Use an Impediments Backlog

Seek Clarity Not Bureaucracy

An Argument for a Look Ahead

“Knowing why facilitates buy-in”

“Vision creates focus”

“Defining success helps us to know when we’ve reached the goal”

“Metrics facilitate inspection”

“Hypotheses can be wrong!”

“Learning loops enable new hypotheses”

Perform Management Retrospectives

Get Everyone Involved

Change working groups sizes and approaches

The Importance of Regular Retrospectives

How to Run Amazing Virtual Retrospectives

The Top 4 Ways to Follow through on Retrospectives

THE AMBASSADOR TECHNIQUE

ADD THE RETROSPECTIVE ACTIONS TO THE TOP OF THE SPRINT BACKLOG

CREATE A KANBAN BOARD FOR RETROSPECTIVE ACTION ITEMS

How to Manage the Dreaded ...Awkward Silence...

Focus on the Long-­term, Not Just the Latest Sprint

To help overcome systemic issues, I recommend using a great exercise called

Pairing for Connection in Distributed Retrospectives

Good Retrospective Facilitators Act Like Designers:

Use Ice-breakers to Overcome Resistance to Retrospectives

To overcome resistance to the retrospective, try ice­breakers.

However for correctly-sized Scrum teams I recommend keeping ice-breakers simple,

An appreciation is a statement in this form:

TIP #2: The Timebox and When to Neglect It by Andreas Schliep........................................................ 5

TIP #19: Good Retrospective Facilitators Act Like Designers:

Focus on the Long-term, Not Just the Latest Sprint

To overcome resistance to the retrospective, try icebreakers.