Talking about retrospectives and what I have learned, by working with teams outside IT. Mostly with teachers / nursing homes (not those exactly, but similar)

1. Retrospectives outside IT
“If I’d want an easy job, I’d be a programmer” - Aki Salmi

2. –Johnny Appleseed
I can’t just go give a talk and say “what I do is call it a safe
space and then some magic happens and it works”…

3. @rinkkasatiainen
aki.salmi@iki.fi
www.rinkkasatiainen.fi
Hiking Guide (Suomen Latu)
Supervisor (independent)
(soon) P.E.T Trainer (independent)
ex-ScrumMaster
Software Craftsman
conference organiser
Craft in joy? Crafting joy

4. #codefreeze

5. Structure of the talk
• 30+ minutes of talk
• Intro / who is rinkkasatiainen
• background
• “call it a safe place”
• outro

6. Ever been on a team where
• retrospectives are _not_ held after each sprint?

7. How many of you
• are ScrumMasters
• facilitate Retrospectives
• ever had a feeling ‘something strange is happening here, and I have no idea
what’

8. What is the most challenging part, in
being ScrumMaster?

9. Working with people
Working with folks
Working with myself

10. Be always present, not always visible

11. Background

12. Let’s imagine …

13. The definition of ‘retrospectives’

14. –Scrum Alliance
“The sprint retrospective meeting is
held at the end of every sprint after the
sprint review meeting. The team and
ScrumMaster meet to discuss what
went well and what to improve in
the next sprint. The product owner
does not attend this meeting.”

15. –Agile Alliance
“often The team meets regularly, usually adhering to the rhythm of its
iterations, to explicitly reflect on the most significant events to have
occurred since the previous such meeting, and take decisions aiming
at remediation or improvement.” …

16. –Agile Alliance
“This is often a facilitated meeting following a set format. Several
distinct formats have been described, depending in large part on the
time set aside for the meeting, typically between one and three hours.
One important reason to use a facilitated format is to give all team
members an opportunity to speak up.”

17. pitfalls and benefits

18. –Agile Alliance
“Being an all-hands meeting, a retrospective comes at a significant
cost in person-hours. Poor execution, either from the usual causes of
bad meetings […] or from causes specific to this format (lack of
trust and safety, taboo topics), will result in the practice being
discredited, even though a vast majority of the Agile community views it
as valuable”

19. –Agile Alliance
“retrospectives promote ownership and responsibility by the project
team with respect to all aspects of the process; participants can
understand the rationale behind all process decisions.”

20. Retrospective levels
from retrospectives 1.0 to retrospectives 3.0

21. Retrospectives 1.0
• what did we do?
• what went well?
• what to improve?

22. Retrospectives 2.0
• “The book”
• A process
• practices
• bag of tricks
• prerequisites: trust and safety
• with this only, we can make
miracles!

23. Retrospective 3.0
• Process
• similar, bit less structure, longer, slower
• bag of tricks
• => changed to something different
• Prerequisites
• Trust and Safety

24. What people say about
retrospectives 3.0

25. Peter Kofler:
“People talk more on your retrospectives”
Klaus Nagel:
“At codefreeze you did a really great retrospective and there I realized how
important that is.”

26. This is what I’m aiming to provide
“what have I learned”

28. Supervision
(work guidance)
työnohjaaja (fi)
handledare i arbete (se)

29. –Coaching Supervision at its B.E.S.T
“Supervision is a safe reflective place for all individuals […] to explore
their own work in partnership with a skilled and respectful
professional. It promotes the safety of all stakeholders, enhances
ethical awareness and encourages growth and learning for all
parties.”

30. Safety revisited
• physical safety
• psychological safety
• social safety
• spiritual safety

31. Psychological safety
• it’s about BEING ACCEPTED
• by building confidence on us
• allowing us to BE OURSELVES
• which encourages me to express feelings and needs
• and wanting me BE my TRUE SELF
• and helps me to BE VALUED

32. Social safety
• I am who I am
• I am valued
• We’re on this together

33. Supervision in Finland
http://suomentyonohjaajat.fi/

34. History
• since 1950s
• exploration of work
• mostly in emotionally intensive
environments
• long process - slow
• different schools
• solution-oriented, community-
dynamics, systemic, etc.
Scrum vs. Kanban?

35. Supervision types
• individual
• groups (e.g. ScrumMasters possibly from different companies)
• work groups (Scrum team + SM + po)
• leaders
• crisis

36. Ethics
• our ethics are defined by the
association of Supervisors (STOry)
• loyalty to client, supervisee, self
• => I need supervision for my
supervision.
• highly confidential

37. What is in my backpack nowadays?

38. Dynamics:
a pattern or process of change, growth, or activity
Merriam-Webster

39. Group Dynamics
• coalescence breeds dynamics
• highly emotional process
• in all interaction, cooperation and
experiences

40. Group Dynamics in Action
• lost core task (rewriting of software
over value to customer)
• tensions between (sub-) groups
• dynamics of big groups (more than
10 people)
• power of three
• authority

41. Supervisors’ / ScrumMasters’ toolbox
• trust and love
• respect
• joy
• sorrow
• courage
• gratitude

42. ScrumMaster’s greatest aid
• Have someone to talk to

43. Emotional intelligence - a true story

44. Emotional intelligence - what did I do
• Listening to one’s own body.
• to recognise feelings and dynamic tensions
• to differentiate own feelings from those of others’
• be able to act, while feeling emotions.
• value sympathy and empathy

45. Listening
• Reflecting back sensitively.
• and appropriately
• Active Listening
• NVC (Nonviolent Communication)

46. Clean Language
• Using deep listening
• clean question
• opening and closing (NOT open vs. closed)
• reflecting back specific words used by the supervisee.
• Maintaining total presence in mind and body and focusing on the language
and unique style of the clients

47. I as a Container (IAAC)
• carrying items from earlier to future
• adding observations, feelings,
words to my book.
• Going through previous notes,
before the next session
• trying to build a process from one
session to the next.

48. Learning
• as Growth
• emergent
• within individuals’ thoughts, in
interactions within people
• as Change
• my own choice - my activity - I choose
to attend
• emotional coalescence to the event
• individual processing of new information
and sharing within community

49. Opinions
• They are little black and white?

50. Opinions, given room to grow

51. #mehOpinions

55. All that, sounds like retrospectives?

56. –Coaching Supervision at its B.E.S.T
“Supervision differs from coaching in that it has a broader, deeper
and less defined remit. It is usually longer term and supports the
development of the coach in the service of their client.”

57. Let’s recap

58. What would I do differently as
ScrumMaster

59. What I would build upon?

60. • Prerequisites
• KEEP: safety
• Process
• KEEP: retrospectives (the Agile Alliance way)
• ADD: supervision (of some sort)
• Bag Of Tricks
• UPDATE: into backpack of reactions

61. Extras
• I’d be observant on group dynamics
• supervision for the group (SM + PO included)
• group supervision for group of SMs (or individual supervision)
• a balancing act between retrospectives and some deeper discussions.

62. End is close

63. –Gitte Klitgaard @NativeWired
I can’t just go give a talk and say “what I do is call it a safe
space and then some magic happens and it works”…

65. Role of ScrumMaster

66. Be Present
Have someone
who listens

67. My Footprint in IT

68. Be present. Be kind to oneself.

69. What to read
• https://medium.com/@evanderkoogh/the-single-most-important-thing-to-
master-as-an-agile-coach-22dd31d1d80d#.xgdkbxal2