Myriam Hamed Torres - Effective Agile Retrospectives: Tips to run valuable retrospectives

1. Effective Agile Retrospectives
Tips to run valuable retrospectives
Myriam Hamed Torres
Linkedin: uk.linkedin.com/in/myriamhamedtorres
Twitter: @M0N4K0

2. Just a tiny bit about me...
• Software Development Manager at Thomson
Reuters
• Member of the TR PM Center of Excellence
• Member of London Agile Communities:
– DSDM Consortium
– PMI UK Agile Forum
– Agile Coaching Exchange
– Agile Evangelist & Practitioners
• Accredited DSDM Agile Professional
• Certified ScrumMaster (CSM)

3. • Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives
• Prerequisites for retrospectives
• Retrospective Exercises
• Executing effective retrospectives
• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams
• Benefits and value of retrospectives
Agenda

4. • Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives
• Prerequisites for retrospectives
• Retrospective Exercises
• Executing effective retrospectives
• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams
• Benefits and value of retrospectives
Agenda

5. WHAT DOES “RETROSPECTIVE”
MEAN?
Retrospective (rɛtrə(ʊ)ˈspɛktɪv)
adjective:
1. looking back on or dealing with past events or
situations.
Source: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/retrospective

6. WHY DO WE DO
RETROSPECTIVES?
• Environment constantly changing
• Fearless competition
• Customers demand more, better and faster solutions
Organisations need to evolve to stay in business and keep
delivering value; investing in large and expensive
improvement programmes.
What makes retrospectives different from traditional
improvement programmes?
”The Team” and “Frequency”

7. Retrospectives can be held at the end of any process
(timebox, increment, project, programme…)
WHEN TO RUN RETROSPECTIVES

8. • Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives
• Prerequisites for retrospectives
• Retrospective Exercises
• Executing effective retrospectives
• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams
• Benefits and value of retrospectives
Agenda

9. Norman L. Kerth highlights 5 important
prerequisites for a successful retrospective:
1. “the need for the ritual”
2. “naming the process”
3. “prime directive for a retrospective”
4. “the darker side of the retrospectives”
5. “retrospective facilitator”
Prerequisites for
retrospectives

10. • Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives
• Prerequisites for retrospectives
• Retrospective Exercises
• Executing effective retrospectives
• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams
• Benefits and value of retrospectives
Agenda

11. RETROSPECTIVE EXERCISES
Some exercises:
● Asking Questions
● Star Fish
● Sail Boat
● Happiness Index
● Constellation
There many more… so select the retrospective
exercise that better fits the team’s needs and
objectives

12. ASKING QUESTIONS

13. Key four questions defined by Norman L. Kerth:
• What did we do well, that if we don’t discuss
we might forget?
• What did we learn?
• What should we do differently
next time?
• What still puzzles us?
ASKING QUESTIONS

14. • Stop – These are activities that do not
bring value to a team or customer.
• Less – These are activities that require a
high level of effort and produce little
benefit.
• Keep – Usually these are good activities or
practices that team members want to
keep.
• More – Activities on which a team should
focus and perform more often.
• Start – Activities or ideas that a team
wants to bring into the game.
STAR FISH (AKA WHEEL)
Start
More
Keep
Less
Stop

15. STAR FISH
Source: http://www.funretrospectives.com/starfish/

16. • The islands represent the
team’s goals/vision. They work
every day in order to reach
these islands.
• The rocks/icebergs represent
the risks they might encounter
along the way.
• The anchor on the boat is
everything that slows them
down on their journey.
• The clouds/sails and the wind
represent everything that helps
them to reach their goal.
SAIL BOAT (AKA SPEEDBOAT)
*Images sourced from Google search

17. SAIL BOAT
Source: http://www.emmajefferies.com/blog
Source:
https://www.scrumalliance.org/community/articles/2013/december/retrospe
ctive-the-fun-way
Source: http://www.agile-ux.com/tag/innovation-games/

18. Graphic representation of team members’ emotions during
iterations.
HAPPINESS INDEX (AKA NIKO-
NIKO CALENDAR)
Source: Agile Trail

19. • Ideal for teams/people that do not feel very comfortable
sharing opinions.
• Can open any other retrospective.
• Can cover different areas of improvement: technical,
innovation, people, etc…
• All you need is an open space and an object to be the
centre of universe.
• Read out statements/questions and let the team members
move closer or farther from the universe depending on
their views.
CONSTELLATION

20. YOU CAN ALSO TRY...
● Car brand
● One-word retrospective
● Four L's Retrospective
● Force Field Analysis
● Bubble up
● 6 Thinking Hats
● Five whys
● … and many more 

21. • Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives
• Setting the scene
• Retrospective Exercises
• Executing effective retrospectives
• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams
• Benefits and value of retrospectives
Agenda

22. ● Empower your teams
● Change only one thing at a time
● Use root cause analysis to find the causes (not symptoms)
of problems
● Make the progress visible
● Use different exercises in retrospectives depending on the
issues at hand, the mindset of the team, etc...
● The key is the retrospective facilitator
CONSIDERATIONS

23. • Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives
• Setting the scene
• Retrospective Exercises
• Executing effective retrospectives
• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams
• Benefits and value of retrospectives
Agenda

24. The same considerations for retrospectives apply to
distributed teams.
Greater emphasis on:
• Trust and empowerment of the team
• Retrospective facilitator with the right experience
• Tools - applications, webcams, etc...
Some useful tools:
http://en.linoit.com/
http://ideaboardz.com/
https://pinitto.me
http://lithespeed.com/
DISTRIBUTED RETROSPECTIVES

25. SAIL BOAT (LINOIT.COM)

26. ASKING QUESTIONS
(IDEABOARDZ.COM)

27. • Purpose - Why do we do retrospectives
• Setting the scene
• Retrospective Exercises
• Executing effective retrospectives
• Agile retrospectives with distributed teams
• Benefits and value of retrospectives
Agenda

28. • Actions are raised and owned by the team. There is no
transition or handover task on to someone else – speeds
the resolution time.
• Actions help improving team performance. Better
performing teams help the organisation in delivering value
to customers faster.
• Anybody can be involved; Product Owners, Business
Analysts, Customers, etc… Increasing collaboration across
functions.
BENEFITS OF RETROSPECTIVES

29. • Project Retrospectives : A Handbook for Team Reviews (Norman
L. Kerth)
• Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great (Esther Derby,
Diana Larsen and Ken Schwaber)
• Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives - A Toolbox of
Retrospective Exercises (Luis Gonçalves and Ben Linders)
• Retrospective Plans -
http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Retrospective_Plans
• Agile Retrospective Resource Wiki -
http://retrospectivewiki.org/index.php?title=Main_Page
LITERATURE & RESOURCES

30. Any questions?

31. Grazie mille!!