Creating positive retrospectives

1. We’re Going to Ted Lasso This
Retrospective!
1
Richard K Cheng
Agility Prime Solutions

2. As we are about to start…
1. Think about one of the best retrospective experience you’ve had
2. Think about one of the worst retrospective experience you’ve had

3. § Agile trainer & coach
§ CST, CSM, CSPO, CSP, PMI-ACP, PMP,
SAFe SPC, AKT, KMP, Certified LeSS
Practitioner, CAL 1, Certified Enterprise
Scrum Trainer, Training from the Back of the
Room Certified Instructor
§ Background in government, commercial,
and non-profit transformations
§ Reston, VA
§ Fun fact, I have 3 passports
§ https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardcheng
§ Richard.Cheng@AgilityPrimeSolutions.com
§ https://linktr.ee/richardkcheng

4. We’re getting better…

5. Shift retrospectives towards…
Using positivity to celebrate what we do well
Using positivity to get better and improve
Using positivity to address our mistakes and issues
Using positivity to come up with plan

6. How would you facilitate the retrospective?
In your breakout rooms discuss:
Scenario A
Your team is great. You've continually met all your sprint goals and your
Product Owner is pleased with the results to date. Yeah!
Scenario B
Your team did not do so well. Nothing was completed during the sprint.
Team members are complaining and blaming each other for the failures.

7. How would you facilitate the retrospective?
Scenario A
Your team is great. You've continually met all your sprint goals and
your Product Owner is pleased with the results to date. Yeah!
Our retros:
• How can we provide more business and user value?
• How can we get our product to production faster?
• How can we share and make the other teams better?
• How can we make the world a better place?

8. How would you facilitate the retrospective?
Scenario B
Your team did not do so well. Nothing completed last sprint. Team
members are complaining and blaming each other for the failures.
What we did:
ScrumMaster approached each team member prior to the
retrospective and asked them, if we succeed and do an amazing
job next sprint, what did we do to make that happen.

9. Techniques

10. Retrospective Prime Directive
Regardless of what we discover, we
understand and truly believe that everyone
did the best job they could, given what they
knew at the time, their skills and abilities,
the resources available, and the situation at
hand.
-- Norm Kerth

11. Good and
Better
• Good – Things that are
going well …
• Better – What we can be
doing even better …

12. Kudos
Retro
Kudos
Went Well
To Improve
Action Items

13. Marie Kondo
Method
Brings You Joy – What went well,
happy to keep.
Throw Out – What didn’t go well,
don’t want to keep
Recycle – What you want to improve
and reuse

14. Baseball Retrospective
Press Conference – In three words, describe the sprint?
Picked off - Did anything catch us off guard?
Outs - What was not good.
Foul Balls - What can we adjust to turn it into a hit in the next sprint?
Hits - Good things that happened.
Home Run - Kudos, recognition, people going above and beyond, great things
that happened.

15. Appreciation Retro
😃 I’m glad that …
🤔 I’m wondering …
😢 It wasn’t so great that …
✅ Action Items …
🙏 I appreciate …

16. Something Positive
What has someone done really well?
What nice thing did someone else do for you?
What is something that makes you happy?
What do you want to complain about?
What did you learn?

17. Edward
DeBono’s
Six
Thinking
Hats
https://www.debonogroup.com/services/core-programs/six-thinking-hats/

18. SM Progression for Problem Solving
1. Did we talk about it in the Retrospective?
2. Did we discuss the impact?
3. Did we identify root causes?
4. Did we come up with solutions?
5. Have we tried the solutions?
6. What were the initial results?
7. What are next steps from here?

19. Your Retrospectives
In your breakout rooms:
• What's one thing your team does well that should be celebrated that.
• What's one key issue that's plaguing your team, and how can we deal
with that in a positive way.

20. Continuous Improvement

21. § Agile trainer & coach
§ CST, CSM, CSPO, CSP, PMI-ACP, PMP,
SAFe SPC, AKT, KMP, Certified LeSS
Practitioner, CAL 1, Certified Enterprise
Scrum Trainer, Training from the Back of the
Room Certified Instructor
§ Background in government, commercial,
and non-profit transformations
§ Reston, VA
§ Fun fact, I have 3 passports
§ https://www.linkedin.com/in/richardcheng
§ Richard.Cheng@AgilityPrimeSolutions.com