I’d like to share a personal experience of one of the most effective ways I have experienced a when taking a retrospective look at a body of work. That body may be for any period. It just needs to have a specific start, finish and intended goals. I was simply a participant, and don’t know if this isn’t already covered in some training or published material.
When the task was completed the entire team would meet, and we would simply answer two questions.
- What did you like about the project?
- What did you not like about the project?
Every person on the team was required to have one answer to each question. So, we would start with what you like. One person would start, and we would go around the room. The answers were written so all could see. We continued until everyone had given a response. Nobody was allowed to copy or not give an answer.
Next, in like fashion, we answered the question about what we didn’t like. At the end of all the answers, we would have a full board, especially with a larger team.
What was neat was that the answers were not restricted to any specific aspect of the project. They could range from communication, procedure issues, extra work resulting from production bug fixes, interrupted sprints with newer “High Priorities”, requirements that weren’t correct or adequate, extra effort from individuals, missing infrastructure, etc.
Now comes the magic. All we have, at this point, is a big list that is not really actionable. The moderator of the retrospective would now have each individual pick their top three answers for positive, and top three for negative. You chose what you thought was your top, without regard to what others had chosen. What surprised me every time was that when everyone had responded, there were usually three positive, and three negative answers that stood out. This was something actionable. And it became the basis of goals we had for the next unit of work. So, not only were we building software, we were also building skills and teamwork.
If this sounds familiar to you, feel free to leave a comment should others wish to look into the concept further.
Cheers,
Ben