"Poor management can increase software costs more rapidly than any other factor." (Barry Boehm)

A friend forwarded this email to me:

I just wanted to share a tip that has made a world of difference for our scrum. I read through this book about 4 months ago



And have implemented some of the practices in it. This has taken our retrospectives from being a 1 hour meeting where we went around the table and said what was good and what wasn’t (and then never really changed anything) to a full 3 hour incredibly productive conversation that the whole team participates in and we actually implement the changes that we propose in! It’s been a complete 180 from a meeting that was a waste of time to something the team looks forward to doing at the end of each sprint.

So if you haven’t read this book, I really recommend you do and try out some of the things in it (even if you think they are a bit cheesy and that the engineers will never tolerate it). It’s a quick read (3 hours tops for the whole book) and will at least give you some ideas for improvement of your retrospectives.

Woohoo! This is the highest praise an author can receive. (I don't think the activities are cheesy!)

And, for your reading pleasure, two recent articles on retrospectives:

Making Retrospective Changes Stick

Eight Reasons Retrospectives Fail (And What You Can Do About Them)

Labels: agile, Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 9:15:00 AM

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If you've been holding iteration retrospectives for a while, you know that timelines get old after a while. But when team skip the data part, each person works from his own data (which other people may not know) and his own interpretations (which other people may not share). That means that the team is less likely to come up with actions that have broad support.

So here are two more fairly quick ways to gather data for an iteration retrospective.

Diana describes FRIM, an activity that looks at the frequency and impact of events, impediments and boons that affected the team during the iteration. Use this as input into analysis and to decide on experiments and changes for the next iteration.

Jean Tabaka used a sailing metaphor to gather data at the Retrospective Facilitators Gathering retrospective. She asked us to identify events, interactions, etc that put wind in our sails. Then she asked us when we were in the doldrums, becalmed or held back by tides and current. We put up the "wind in the sails" stuff behind the boat, filling the sail and the doldrums stuff in front of the boat. The metaphor helped keep us out of habitual thinking and automatic categorization. And it was kind of fun.

Labels: Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 7:27:00 AM

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I just came across this nice review (written by Brad Appleton) of Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great on AgileJournal.com. For me, "useful" is the highest praise for a book.

Labels: Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 5:04:00 PM

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There's been a discussion going on the the Retrospectives list on how to do distributed retrospectives and planning meetings. The assumption is that it's cost prohibitive to bring the group together.

People always site cost as a barrier. It does cost money to bring people together face to face. There's lodging, airfare, time not spent on billable activities... and all these are easy to count.

But what this thinking doesn't take into account are the costs of not having the team face to face for planning and retrospectives:

Less collaboration, greater misunderstandings, continuation of us/them dynamics (be they ever so subtle there's always differences in access to power, information, and resources), miscommunication, etc.

And there's lost opportunity to build relationships and trust which short-cuts many of those problems.

But all those are hard to measure and quantify, and are almost always left out of the cost equation. People look at the costs without any of the benefits.

Even when you have access to great technology for planning, retrospectives or other forms of collaboration, face to face is still superior for communication and collaboration in the moment and in building a foundation for future communication. Face to face is superior in building shared commitment and infusing a project with energy.

Labels: communication, Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 2:45:00 AM

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George continues the exploration of the Prime Directive.

Labels: Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 7:46:00 PM

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Diana Larsen has an article on Appreciatative Retrospectives posted on the AYE Conference site. Appreciative retrospectives build on strengths and look to create the circumstances that enabled people to be at thier best.

(Diana will be one of the guest presenters for the 2007 AYE Conference.)

Labels: Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 6:06:00 AM

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Diana Larsen responded to a question about using questions in a retrospective:

Questions should lead the group through the group thinking framework of the retrospective. For example, for a continuous improvement goal:

setting the stage: “In a word or two, how are each of you doing today?”, then outline goal and review working agreements;

gathering data: Look for facts/events, “As you think back over this iteration, what events or instances stand out? What did you see and hear that sticks in your memory?” and when the group has answered those questions, move on to looking for responses to the facts/events, “How did your energy flow over the course of the iteration? When was it high or satisfying? When were the low points?”;

generate insights: “Now that we have a full picture of what happened and how we responded, what would you recommend we keep doing the same, do more of, do less of, start doing, or stop doing altogether?” and “What are the implications of each if we do?” “Looking at our keep, more, less, start, stop lists, which actions would have the greatest impact on our work or our teamwork?” ;

decide what to do: “Considering the impact of each of the items on our list, which of them do we have the most passion/energy to take as an action or experiment during the next iteration?” “What one or two will we select to include in our iteration planning meeting?” (A recent conversation with Esther brings the last two questions to mind. We actually talk about this stuff in our spare time too. )

close the retrospective: “Who owns each action item?” “How will we know when it’s complete?” “What can we do to continue to improve our retrospectives? What should we keep doing, what should we try differently next time?”

When I want to reflect on a very short period of work--a meeting, a pairing session, a workshop day--I use questions for the entire retrospetive, which may last only a few minutes. Those few minutes can make a big difference in increasing effectiveness, improving results, and maintaining working relationships.

For more on using questions to help people think and learn together, check out The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace (ICA Series)

Labels: Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 6:33:00 AM

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People come up with all sorts of ideas and potential changes in retrospectives--usually more than the team can digest in one retrospective or, for changes, more than they can do in the next iteration. I often use dot voting to help the team prioritize and choose what to work on.

Usually, I give every one x number of dots (I use a highly unscientific algorithm to determine the number of dots each person receives), then ask people to vote on which they believe will make the biggest difference to the team.

Last week I tried a variation on dot voting after the team had come up with a long list of issue to analyze (it was a release retrospective, so they were looking at a few months of work).

Rather than use one color as I usually do, I used this scheme:

First round: Each person had 4 green dots to mark the issues that would make the biggest difference on the next release.

Second round: Each person had 4 orange dots to mark the issues where the people in the room had influence or control.

Third round: Each person had 4 yellow dots where to mark where he or she personally had interest and energy to work on an issue.

At the end it was clear that there were issues that would make a big difference, but no on had energy to work on them. And it was clear where people felt they could actually make a difference.

(Since this was a release retrospective, many of the issues crossed organizational boundaries and couldn't be solved within the team.)

Faced with a long list of issues, three-color dot voting worked to winnow the list down to a manageable number of items for the team to tackle.

Labels: Retrospectives

posted by Esther Derby at 1:46:00 PM

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