retrospectives: how (and why) to not hate them
Post on 06-May-2015
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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?
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
• 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):
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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)
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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)
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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?
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
• Retrospectives can come in different
shapes and sizes
• Encourage your team/ facilitator to
change it up
• Stagnation = the kiss of death
Retrospectives: Some flavors
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
• 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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
• 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+
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
Your Favorite Retrospective?
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
• 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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
• TODAY: Make a difference in your team/org’s retrospectives!
• Send the following: (Note: Find me at hala.saleh@gmail.com 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)
© 2014 Hala Saleh www.halasaleh.com
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