retrospectives: how (and why) to not hate them

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RETROSPECTIVES: How (and Why) to Not Hate Them

Hala Saleh Agile Coach, Product Manager, Entrepreneur

http://www.halasaleh.com @HalaSaleh1

Who Am I?

•  Hala Saleh

•  CSM , CSP (as of last Tuesday!), PMP

•  History/Evolution: Developer -> QA Engineer ->

Project Manager -> Agile Coach/ Consultant

•  Today: Co-Founder: NomNomFinder.com, Director of

Product at Rentler.com, involved in Utah startup scene

•  Passionate about agile because of my belief in the

power of agile values to transform the way we live and

work!

© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com

What is a Retrospective?


Retrospectives: Then and Now

q Historically: Post-Mortems

-  Share your experience with post-mortems! Describe them. What

happens afterwards?

q Used to be done at the end of a long-term project.

Issues:

-  Team frequently disperses afterwards

-  No opportunity for real improvement

q  Nowadays: Usually done at the end of a “sprint” or iteration,

especially in agile organizations

q  Some teams are making retrospectives an ongoing activity



If you could implement only ONE thing from agile methodologies, it should be

#retrospec;ves.

•  Who has participated in a retrospective or post-

mortem?

•  Who participates in retrospectives on a regular

basis?

Split into groups of 4 – 5 people:

–  should have at least 1 person who has participated in

retrospectives in each group

Let’s Explore


In your groups, discuss the following questions (5

minutes):

1.  What do you like about retrospectives, or what are

some potential advantages?

2.  What do you NOT like about retrospectives, or

what are some potential disadvantages?

Keeping it Real


What do you like about retrospectives, or what are some potential advantages?

•  Safe place to implement changes

•  Retrospective activities (like drawing – ways to think

outside of the normal paradigm)

•  Talking about things that might need to change in

process

•  Seeing a change implemented

Retrospectives: The Good


•  When done frequently, can expose problems

before they become deep-seated issues

•  Team interaction

•  Openness

•  “We can do it” attitude

Retrospectives: The Good Crowd-Sourced (Twitter, F2F):


What do you NOT like about retrospectives, or what are some potential disadvantages?

•  Sometimes hard to get participation

•  People come with complaints but no ideas on how to

change

•  Another meeting

•  Fels like baggage is being brought up every time

Retrospectives: The Bad (& the Ugly)


Retrospectives: The Bad (& the Ugly) Crowd-Sourced (Twitter, F2F):

•  Feels like a critical environment

–  Fix: Frequency to feel more comfortable

•  The information gathered is almost always

forgotten/ignored

–  Fix: Treat action items as regular tasks that go in

your backlog

–  Focus on 1 – 2 items that the team agrees on

•  Blame/fingerpointing

–  Fix: Setting retrospective rules ahead of time © 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com

Retrospectives: The 5 Whys

•  Why retrospect?

–  Retrospection = Analysis

•  Why analyze?

–  Analysis = Understanding

•  Why understand?

–  Understanding = Improvement

•  Why improve?

–  Improvement = Growth

•  Why grow?

–  Growth = So many things! (Let’s check the next slide)


Retrospectives: Growth = ?

•  Growth =

– Achievement

– Novelty

– Excitement

– Motivation

– FUN.

•  And at the end of the day, if you aren’t having

fun, then you aren’t going to stick around. © 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com

Retrospectives and YOU

If retrospectives can help create an environment where you are motivated, learning, improving,

and having fun:

•  What do you think now about your role in

retrospectives?

•  How do you feel about whether retrospectives are

successful and achieve their goals?


•  Retrospectives can come in different

shapes and sizes

•  Encourage your team/ facilitator to

change it up

•  Stagnation = the kiss of death

Retrospectives: Some flavors


•  What went well?

•  What didn’t go well?

•  What can we change/ Action items (a.k.a

HCWMWDGWGWNT*)?

Retrospectives: Standard Edition

* How Can We Make What Didn’t Go Well Go Well Next Time


•  Data Gathering:

–  List the main events/highlights of the last iteration

•  Data Analysis:

–  Which of the events were highs? Why?

–  Which of the events were lows? Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why? (i.e. 5 Whys to get to Root Cause). Let’s try!

•  Root Cause -> Action Items:

–  Now that we know root cause: What can be done to avoid

repeating the lows?

Retrospectives: Standard Edition+



Starfish Retrospectives: An Example

•  Allow people to go mark certain dates on the timeline to show when

something happened that had an impact on them

•  Discuss the different events and have people explain what the impact was

on them personally and on the team

•  Ask the team to come up with solutions to the most commonly mentioned

events

•  Team picks 1 – 2 action items to include in next iteration

Retrospective Timeline


Your Favorite Retrospective?


•  Set Retrospective Rules –  Frequency (Experiment with this!)

–  Who Facilitates

–  End Result

•  Gather Data •  Acknowledge the Positive

•  Focus on 1 – 2 Challenges/Issues to Discuss –  Team should vote/agree on what they are most motivated to work on

•  Action Plan Your Action Items –  Include them in your requirements, tasks, backlog the same as any other task

–  Include in your next iteration’s planning

–  Include in your next iteration’s review

Retrospectives: Framework for Success


Resources & Tools

•  Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great

(Esther Derby & Diana Larsen)

•  Esther Derby’s blog: http://www.estherderby.com/

category/reading/_retrospectives

•  Retrospective cookies: (weisbart.com/cookies)

•  retrospectivewiki.org © 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com


•  TODAY: Make a difference in your team/org’s retrospectives!

•  Send the following: (Note: Find me at [email protected] or @HalaSaleh1, ping me TODAY

and I will send this to you! I will also include you in a drawing for 1 of 2 prizes: Agile

Retrospectives book and a box of Retrospective fortune cookies!)

Dear Project Manager/Scrum Master/Team/Person who facilitates retrospectives (or should),

Today, I became a believer in the power of retrospectives.

There is so much growth and learning we can achieve together as a team! I am happy to share some of what I’ve learned and some ideas I got from the session I attended.

One example is generating concrete action items that get included in our planning and development cycles, and are treated the same as any other development task!

I look forward to contributing to making our retrospectives a success.

Retrospectives: Your Task

•  Ben Linders (@BenLinders)

•  Matt McMurry (@mcmurrym)

•  Samantha Laing (@samlaing)

•  Karen Greaves (@karen_greaves)

•  John Miller (@agileschools)

•  Syednazirrazik (@joesat)

Thanks to the following RetroRockstars (for answering my Twitter request)


retrospectives: how (and why) to not hate them

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