The document discusses how to conduct effective retrospectives in agile teams. It recommends that teams regularly reflect on how to improve their effectiveness and adjust their behaviors accordingly. It provides tips for facilitating retrospectives, including creating a safe environment, gathering data beforehand, listing what went well and opportunities for improvement, and voting on actions. The document also suggests using techniques like anonymous question generators and "five whys" to get to the root causes of issues in order to make iterative improvements.

1. Simple Retrospectives
Courtesy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/windriver/39627835

2. At regular intervals, the team reflects
on how
to become more effective, then tunes
and adjusts
its behavior accordingly.
— 12 Agile Principles

3. Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration Iteration
Plan Plan
Plan
Reflect Reflect Reflect

4. Regardless of what we discover, we
understand and truly believe that
everyone did the best job they could,
given what they knew at the time, their
skills and abilities, the resources
available, and the situation at hand.
— Keith Norman
retrospectives.com

5. Mindset
Create a safe place — no blame
No by standing — speak up
Goals and measurements
Facilitate, don't “manage”
Incremental, testable steps

6. Prep work
Gather data, gather thoughts -- review from
last time
Is there trust (yet)?
Technique: Anonymous question generator
Poll the team mood and disposition

7. Stop, breathe, take a break.

8. How-to
List what worked well; give recognition
List what we learned
List what we still don’t understand
Recap last lists and compare
Brainstorm what to do differently
Vote: Three dots each.
1-3 Propositions — Maybe “6 hat” them

9. Five why's
Server won't start. Why?
Upgrades failed. Why?
Tests didn't run. Why?
Takes to long to run. No time. Why?
Schedule pressure. Technical debt. Why?
Getting to root cause. Let's address that this
iteration and measure improvement

10. ...there are two different sources of
learning: learning from the
experiences of the past and
learning from the future as it
emerges
— Otto Scharmer
Theory U
Maybe it’s not “retrospective”

11. Links
http://www.slideshare.net/rpannone/
conducting-an-agile-retrospective
http://www.slideshare.net/estherderby/agile-
retrospectives-4976896
http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html
http://www.retrospectives.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats