Project Retrospectives are an important part of any software development process. The Principles Behind the Agile Manifesto state that, "At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly." How can this be done? By taking the time to reflect and learn and proactively determine what should be done differently in the next iteration, release, or project. Linda's presentation will introduce techniques for project retrospectives, whether they are agile or not. The techniques help teams discover what they’re doing well so that successful practices can continue and identify what should be done differently to improve performance. Retrospectives are not finger pointing or blaming sessions, but rather a highly effective process in which teams reflect on the past to become more productive in the future. Linda will share her experiences with leading retrospectives of several kinds for dozens of projects—successful and unsuccessful, small and large, in academia and industry. Her lessons learned can be applied to any project to enable teams and organizations to become learning organizations.

1. Project Retrospectives
Linda Rising
www.lindarising.org
linda@lindarising.org
@RisingLinda

2. At regular intervals, the
team reflects on how
to become more effective,
then tunes and adjusts
its behavior accordingly.
agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

3. Is that a postmortem?

4. Project Retrospectives
A retrospective is an
opportunity for
the participants to
learn how to
improve. The
focus is on
learning—not
fault-finding.
Norm Kerth

5. Agile Retrospectives
How to mine the
experience of
your software
development
team continually
throughout the
life of the project.

6. The Retrospective Handbook
A guide for Agile Teams by Patrick Kua
Offers practical tips on the mechanics of
preparing, facilitating and making the most
out of the retrospective practice
leanpub.com/the-retrospective-handbook

7. Reflect and find a better way
Here is Edward Bear,
coming downstairs now,
bump, bump, bump, bump,
on the back of his head,
behind Christopher Robin.
It is, as far as he knows, the
only way of coming
downstairs, but sometimes
he feels that there is another
way, if only he could stop
bumping for a moment
and think of it.
A. A. Milne
Winnie the Pooh

8. Why a retrospective?
To learn from the past
We want to believe that learning from
experience is automatic, but it requires
profound skills.
Experience provides data, not knowledge.

9. Half way through the semester, students participate in a
simulation of the development process. They have been
learning about managing and participating in the process all
semester . They are tested on the concepts and we review
these concepts before the simulation. Yet, every time I run
the simulation, the students forget almost everything. When
we retrospect after it, their response is always the same: Yes,
we knew we should do this and that (and not do what we did)
but in the heat of the simulation (it's very fast paced) we
forgot what we knew.
A similar situation where managers went through a
simulation and even after a de-brief made the same mistakes
on a second round of the simulation. “The Experience Trap,”
K. Sengupta, T.K. Abdel-Hamid, and L.N. Van Wassenhove,
HBR, February 2008, 94-101.

10. Why a retrospective?
To reach closure
Research shows that when organizations
go through changes, people have
feelings and thoughts but no place to
express them in the normal course of
business. Thus, their experience is
carried forward as a heaviness that
slows them down and keeps them from
moving into the new setting with
enthusiasm.

11. Retrospective Examples
Military: After Action Reviews, Navy Lessons
Learned, Coast Guard Uniform Lessons
Learned
“Learning in the Thick of It,” M. Darling, Charles
Parry, and Joseph Moore,, July-August 2005.
Harvard Business Review
Post-Fire Critiques
chiefmontagna.com/Articles/post%20fire
%20critique.htm
The CEO & The Monk – corporate funeral

12. What a retrospective isn’t
No naming, no blaming. But praise is
always welcome!
Kerth’s Prime Directive:
Regardless of what we discover, we must
understand and truly believe that everyone did
the best job he/she could, given what was known
at the time, his/her skills and abilities, the
resources available, and the situation at hand.

13. What do cognitive scientists say?
The areas of the brain involved in (prospect)
thinking about the future – insight – occurs
during idle time – are the same areas of the
brain involved in thinking about what others
are thinking.
Right temporoparietal junction RTPJ, one of the
areas that’s most different in our brains.
It takes a long time to develop ~age 5.
We need to take time off, let the mind wander,
listen to others, take another point of view.

14. Appropriate times for a
retrospective
 At the end of project
 While the project is still running
o At milestones
o Heartbeat
o Custom – response to a “surprise”

15. The driving questions
 What worked well that we don’t want to
forget?
 What should we do differently?
 What did we learn?
 What still puzzles us?

16. Agile vs. End of Project
 On an agile project, each iteration should
involve a few small experiments
 Retrospective questions should focus on the
experiments, e.g. “What worked well about
moving the time of our stand-up?”
 Agile retrospectives are about getting ready
for the next iteration, not about solving all the
problems the team has. You may not be able to
solve a given problem, but you can always set
up a small experiment.

17. Ground Rules
Examples:
Try not to interrupt (use a talking stick)
Speak from your own perspective and
not speak for anyone else
No jokes at the expense of anyone in the
room
External facilitation is required.

18. •Readying
•Look at the past
•Prepare for the future
Exercises
 Artifacts Contest
 Offer Appreciations
 Time Line – agile teams do this in “real-time”

19. During the meeting
Time Line Exercise
•Readying
•Look at the past
•Prepare for the future

20. How to perform an experiment
1 - Ask a question
2 - Do background research (we don't always have
time but it might save effort)
3 - Construct hypothesis (harder than it seems)
4 - What data would prove/disprove hypothesis
5 - Test hypothesis with experiment & collect data
5 - Analyze data & draw conclusions
6 - Communicate results - with other teams, write a
paper

21. Advice for experiments
 Explicit change experiments
 Timeboxed
 Unambiguous pass/fail criteria
 Don't boil the ocean or burn the boats
!
 Sometimes just calling attention to a
problem will solve it !

22. How is knowledge shared?
 Web postings.
 Team meetings, staff meetings, tech forums.
 Training courses.
 Interaction during checkups and
retrospectives.
 Process feedback and knowledge sharing
operates continuously.
 Minstrels and story-tellers!

23. Pre-mortem for a project
 Imagine project is a massive failure.
 Each person takes 3 min to write down all the reasons failure
occurred.
 Each person shares a item on their list. Facilitator records them on
a whiteboard. After each person has shared one item, go around
the room, sharing one item each time, until everyone has
exhausted their lists.
 Use secret ballot to identify top 2 or 3 items of greatest concern,
generate ideas for avoiding or minimizing.
 Schedule another meeting to tackle the other problems.
 Take the list out every 3–4 months to resensitize your team to
problems that may be emerging.

24. How to “sell” retrospectives
The purpose of a retrospective is learning
 avoid recurring mistakes
 identify and share successful practices
 prepare for the next iteration and future projects
Everyone says they want to learn, but few take the
time to do so.
Fearless Change: Patterns for introducing new ideas,
Mary Lynn Manns & Linda Rising, Addison-
Wesley, 2005. More Fearless Change, 2015.

25. Facilitation resources
International Association of Facilitators - certification program
http://www.iaf-world.org/
ASTD - American Society for Training and Development - local chapters
http://www.astd.org/index_NS6.html
ISPI - International Society for Performance Improvement - certification,
local chapters http://www.ispi.org/
NASAGA - North American Simulation and Gaming Association
http://www.nasaga.org/
Workshops by Thiagi - Freebies http://thiagi.com/
Roger Schwartz, The Skilled Facilitator
Sam Kaner et al, Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision Making
Ingrid Bens, Facilitate with Ease! Josey-Bass Inc., 2000.
R. Brian Stanfield, ed., The Art of Focused Conversation. ICA Canada,1977.
R. Brian Stanfield, ed., The Workshop Book. ICA Canada, 2002.
Training and development Yahoo group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/trdev/
Jean Tabaka, Collaboration Explained, Addison-Wesley, 2006

26. Next Steps
 Buy & read Norm Kerth’s book: Project Retrospectives,
Dorset House, 2001
 Buy & read Esther Derby and Diana Larsen's book:
Agile Retrospectives, The Pragmatic Bookshelf, 2006
 Buy & read Patrick Kua’s book: A Guide for Agile
Teams, leanpub.com/the-retrospective-handbook
 Check out Linda’s web site – click on Articles, then
Retrospectives
 Sign up for the Yahoo group: retrospectives

27. A closing thought from Norm
Kerth (and Edward Bear)
… we bump our heads in
project after project, day
after day. If we would only
take a moment to stop and
think of alternative ways to
proceed, I’m sure we could
find better ways to do our
work.
Norm Kerth