Jo's Newsletter 1

Retrospectives the basics

JO’s Newsletter

Hello and welcome to the inaugural edition of my newsletter, where I dive deep into the world of retrospectives and beyond! My mission is to empower you with valuable insights and practical strategies to make your retrospectives more impactful and engaging.

In this first issue, we’ll explore the essentials of conducting effective retrospectives; I’ll share my Retro Minibook to help you think about and plan your retrospectives and 3 Tips for making them better. But this is just the beginning. I’d love to hear from you and make sure that this newsletter speaks to the things that you want to know about or get better at. As we grow together, I’ll expand our focus to cover a wide range of topics tailored to your needs and interests.

I’m excited to embark on this journey with you and look forward to your feedback and suggestions. Let’s make every retrospective a step towards greatness!

Whats in this newsletter

Retrospective Essentials 🪄

Here are the essentials of a retrospective from a Scrum perspective.

Sprint Retrospective

Main Goal: 🎯 The main goal of the Sprint Retrospective is to reflect on the previous sprint and identify opportunities for improvement. The team evaluates what happened by visualising data, generating insights about what problems they may have, and looking for opportunities to improve.

Inputs:

A team can use any inputs that they deem necessary for the retrospective. A great Scrum Master will help a team by creating a focus on something that the team needs to work on. They can decide what this is based on observations of how the team works together or by asking the team what they would like to spend time evaluating.

Some ideas for inputs are:

  1. Sprint Backlog: 📋 The list of items that were planned for the sprint.

  2. Sprint Burndown Chart: 📈A visual representation of the remaining work in the sprint.

  3. Team Feedback: 👀 Observations and comments from team members about the sprint or a specific topic. for example, technical practices

  4. Sprint Review Outcomes: 💡Feedback from the Sprint Review meeting regarding the product increment and any stakeholder feedback.

  5. Action Items from Previous Retrospectives: ✅ Review of the actions decided upon in the last retrospective to assess their impact and completion.

Outputs:

Depending on what the team discovers during the retrospective, they may leave the retrospective with any of the below items or a mix of some of them.

  1. Improvement Action Items: 📋 Specific, actionable tasks aimed at enhancing processes, communication, or tools. (no more than 2)

  2. Acknowledgement of Successes: 🎊 Documented practices or approaches that worked well and should be continued.

  3. Updated Team Norms: 📜 Adjustments to team working agreements or processes.

  4. Lessons Learned: 🎓 Insights and learning points are documented for future reference.

Who Needs to Attend:

The developers and Product Owner are participants, and the Scrum Master is the facilitator. It’s important for the Scrum master to remain neutral.

  1. Scrum Team Members: This includes all developers and the Product Owner.

  2. Scrum Master: Facilitates the meeting and ensures that it remains focused and productive.

Frequency:

  • The Sprint Retrospective is held at the end of every sprint, typically following the Sprint Review and before the next Sprint Planning meeting.

Structure of the Meeting:

  1. Set the Stage: Create a comfortable environment where team members feel safe to speak openly.

  2. Gather Data: Collect and review data from the sprint, including successes, challenges, and metrics.

  3. Generate Insights: Discuss and identify patterns, root causes, and areas for improvement.

  4. Decide What to Do: Agree on a set of actionable items to implement in the next sprint.

  5. Close the Retrospective: Summarize decisions, appreciate contributions, and plan for the next steps.

By consistently conducting Sprint Retrospectives, teams can foster continuous improvement and enhance collaboration. Download the Mini Book for more details on the structure and how to do it better.

Retro Mini Book 📕

Retro Mini Book.pdfThis mini book shares details about the five stages of retrospectives and some ideas about how to think about and plan better. 2.66 MB • PDF File

3 Simple Tips for Improving Your Retrospectives 📈

1. 🎯 Clearly defined Objectives and Outcomes

As a facilitator, the first 10 minutes of any meeting you facilitate are the most important. As a Scrum Master, if you use those first 10 minutes of the retrospective effectively, it can impact the entirety of the meeting and the quality of the outcomes. You are setting a tone here, creating a metaphorical container for how the session will run and creating safety for people to participate.

Here is an article that gives more.

2. 🗣️ Encourage participation

Encouraging participation is different from forcing participation; the first is helpful the second will erode the safety you want to create. Encouraging participation means structuring your retrospective in such a way that you give different kinds of thinkers and communicators different ways to interact. 

Some people need to think first and then speak; some people need to speak to think, and some do both. I use exercises and sticky notes to allow space for each person to think on their own first. They write their ideas on sticky notes, and then they share. This gives the thinkers a chance to think and reflect, it allows the talkers to capture words first and gives them a chance to think aloud, and it creates a mechanism for participation. It means that everyone gets an opportunity to share their thoughts.

Some people will have many stickies, and some will have one sticky, which is ok. It's your job as Scrum Master to make sure everyone has the opportunity to participate but not force anyone if they have nothing to add.

3. 🤯 Challenge the team

All teams get to a stage where their retros feel like they are on repeat. It’s now that a Scrum Master needs to challenge their team. Esther Derby speaks of double-loop learning, which means that we have moved past improving our actions and started challenging our thinking.

This is where real transformation lives. One way to do this is to teach the team new things and use the retro to share new models for thinking about things. Another is to look for opportunities to ask challenging questions; what are some other possibilities here? What might we need to be seeing? What if our thinking is wrong here?

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Next Issue

In the next newsletter I will be sharing some stories of some of my best and worst retrospectives and what I learned from them. I would also love to hear what you want to know about. So get in touch with me [email protected] and share what you want me to talk about.