Are your retrospectives taking too long? Do they end up becoming endless, pointless discussions? The takeaways aren't clear? Consider using this adapted version of the 6 Thinking Hats, it will help fix these issues and make your team happier.

1. 6 Thinking Hats
for Retrospectives
Rafael Rosa
@rafaelrosafu

2. Why?
● Retrospectives are important
● They usually take too much time
● People get bored and loose focus
● Some discussions go on forever needlessly
● Glib people can highjack the discussion
● It's hard to summarize what was discussed
and the takeaways from it

3. How can we improve this?

4. 6 Thinking Hats
● Created by Edward de Bono in
1985
● Adapted for agile retrospectives
around 2009
● I first heard about it on a Bluesoft
Podcast in 2010
● I read the book, it's kind of boring
and the original technique lacks
timeboxing

5. What are the benefits?
● Increased focus, keep the discussion on
track
● Fixed duration, no more endeless meetings
● Avoid discussion highjacking by glib people
● Clear and concise takeaways and actions

6. How?
● Choose a facilitator
● The retrospective is split into phases
● Each phase is represented by a hat
● Each hat represent a focus/point of view
● that frames the discussion
● Each hat is timeboxed, the facilitator
● keeps track of time and enforces time limits
● The facilitator writes down what's
● discussed as bullet-points

7. The Hats

8. White Hat
Facts and figures only
● No emotions allowed
● No judgments
● No positives or negatives
Examples:
● 5 stories were finished
● 2 stories are unfinished
● each deployment took 2 hours
● 2 people on vacation
Usually 10 minutes

9. Black Hat
Critical thinking
● "Negative" thinking
● Keep it civil, control people's emotions
● Don't discuss solutions
Guiding questions:
● What went wrong?
● Were there communication issues?
● What pissed people off?
Usually 15 minutes

10. Yellow Hat
Positive thinking
● Highlight the good things
● Celebrate small victories
Guiding questions:
● What did you like the most?
● What did you learn?
● What was easier than you expected?
Usually 10 minutes

11. Red Hat
Emotions and feelings
● Each participant has time to say how he/she feels
about the object of the retrospective
● NO notes on this hat, what's shared is for the
participants ears only
● NO debate is allowed
● NO judgment is allowed
● NO interruptions
● Thank every participant for sharing and move on
2 minutes per person max

12. Green Hat
Constructive problem solving
● Creative, out of the box thinking
● How to improve things in the future
● Plan actions
Guiding questions:
● How can we improve X?
● How can we avoid Y?
● What if we could start W from scratch?
Usually 15 minutes

13. Blue Hat
Meta hat
● Manage the meeting
● In the beginning
○ set the goal and object of the retrospective
○ organize and explain the rules
● In the end
○ read the actions and make sure they have
an owner and a deadline
○ Ask for feedback on the retrospective
○ Share the notes with the team (e-mail, wiki,
etc)
Usually 5 minutes each

14. ~1 hour retro meeting

15. Tips
● Write down the hats and their timeboxes on a shared
document and share it with the team, specially if they are
remote
● Copy and paste previous retrospectives to use as template,
keep the previous timeboxes if possible
● Incentivize the team to add items to the hats before the
retrospective, during the sprint, so they won't forget important
points during the retrospective

16. Tips
● Use the points raised during the White Hat to find hooks to
discuss on Black and Yellow hats
● If nobody moves try to poke them gently asking the guiding
questions
● If everybody is silent for a long time it's a sign to close the hat
and move on
● If someone remembers something that should go in a previous
hat, it's ok to add it, as long as this don't monopolizes the
discussion, go over the timebox or change the subject of the
hat

17. Caveats
● Avoid the urge of extending the timeboxes. Use an audible
timer (cellphone or kitchen timer) to signal "time's up"
● Hats that finish sooner don't pass "time credits" for the other
hats
● Usually the opening Blue Hat is super quick after the first
session
● The facilitator must keep things civil, especially during the
Black Hat
● Make sure people feel safe to share during the Red Hat

18. Happy Hatting
Rafael Rosa
@rafaelrosafu
http://enovance.com
http://mindthecloud.com
http://grokpodcast.com