In this session, you'll gain insights into data from over 36,000 retrospective meetings, keynotes from the World Retrospective notes, and interact in a live retrospective session to work with others to build your knowledge and confidence in running remote retrospectives.

1. Making the most of your online retrospectives
World Retrospective Day 2020
As-salam alaykom

2. To get the most out of this session, please join us here
The Check IN
One word you and your team would use to describe your retrospectives
(Anonymous)
https://join.groupmap.com/839-617-130

3. Now more than ever,
retrospectives are not just for iterative improvements...
but for building connections.
Provocation 1

4. Agile = responding to change =
Opportunity/Challenge to define the way
you run your online retrospectives.
Provocation 2

5. Good cadence, etiquette and expected norms
are MORE important online VS offline.
Provocation 3

6. WiFi drop outs like an
untimed toilet break
Disengagement without
accountability
Security concerns like
the boss is in the room
Social dissonance
Cons of going online

7. More input - no
production block,
asynchronous
Time saved on manual
collation can be
repurposed
Reduces group think
with anonymous or
individual ideation and
voting
Meeting data to
measure cadence and
actions can be tracked
Pros of going online

8. online agile retrospective meetings
www.teamretro.com
TeamRetro was initially designed from aggregated data from
over 36,000 retrospective meetings
with everyone from small product teams to large enterprise project
teams.
…. And we’ve helped run more since then. :)

9. # of Participants

10. # of Actions - Retrospectives

11. # of Actions - Health Checks

12. # of Days between Retrospectives

13. What do teams want?
To be heard
To be valued
To be guided
To feel safe
To be resourced
To be grown

14. Notes from our online retro Playbook

15. Watercooler
Pulse
Data
Last retro
Ground rules
Expectations
Social contract
FOCUS TONE
BEFORE

16. Our team contract clauses
1. No Goats! - G.O.A.T. or scape
2. Dialogue not monologue
3. This is not a sprint review, sprint demo, problem solving meeting
4. Skipping retro day is not okay
5. People first
6. No crappy ice breakers
7. Be present - Be brave
8. Have fun.
9. End on time
10. We don't have to wait until the end of the sprint cycle

17. Watercooler
Pulse
Data
Last retro
Ground rules
Expectations
Social contract
Fit for purpose Tech Check
Create your space
FOCUS TONE FORMAT PREP
BEFORE

19. Activity
Remind
Assign roles
CHECK IN
ASSIGN
ROLES
DURING
Co-Pilot
Time Police
Energy Monitor
Action Avenger

20. Activity
Remind
Assign roles
Roman voting
Round Robin
Consensus driven
Pass the baton
Randomised
Reactions
SpaceTeam
Kahoot
Playdough
Air Pictionary
Scribblr
CHECK IN
ASSIGN
ROLES
FACILITATE BREAK
DURING
Co-Pilot
Time Police
Energy Monitor
Action Avenger

21. 5 mins 5 mins 2 mins
Check in
Gather
Data
Group Voting
Our time box recipe
10 mins
30 Mins 2 mins
Discuss
Review
actions
Appreciate
and Close
5 mins

22. PUBLISH ROTI FOLLOW UP
SAFETY
CHECK
AFTER AND ADD ONS

23. Open Space Technology - WRD 2020
Image from GroupMap Technology
Activating Remote retros
Retrospective tools for teams
High stress and psychological
safety
Role of Scrum Master

24. Other insights from WRD 2020
Best practice for activating remote retros
● Play a game: for example, if you are in a plane that crashed into a desert, what 10 items you want with you in order to survive.
● Use mood checkers.
● Story or picture telling: try asking everyone to tell a story about something, even something as small as a cup or a pair of shoes!
Or to take a picture of something near them to share.
● Guess the song: test your scrum masters singing capabilities by asking them to sing songs for the team to guess!

25. Other insights from WRD 2020
Ideas to keep teams engaged
Once the teams are in the retros, how do you keep them engaged? Here are some cool ideas people were sharing:
● Splitting into smaller teams can help to keep the discussions faster, more comfortable and more democratic
● Liberating Structures by encouraging team members to share a team when they felt not heard or seen. This would be a good
way for a team where there might not be a good level of trust build as yet.

26. Other insights from WRD 2020
How do you handle remote retros for a team with low trust or high stress?
● Set up good online meeting etiquettes such as, turn on your camera when you join, so that everyone does the same thing. It
also helps set the expectations for an online team retrospective.
● Set up tech options. If you’re using Zoom, make sure there’s a backup for another video conferencing tool, like Teams or
Skype, in case one or other other doesn’t work so you can keep online retros happening.
● Encourage compassion. It is not easy to move to a fully online team retro or remote working. We as humans are social beings
after all. So encourage compassion by asking people how they are doing, giving people who are shyer some more time to
respond, and leading by example by creating a safe space to share and collaborate online.

27. To get the most out of this session, please join us here
A Retro-Retrospective
WISHES BOMBS FLOWERS AND PUZZLES
https://secure.teamretro.com/join/631-369-170

28. Jeremy Lu
Co-founder, TeamRetro
jeremy@teamretro.com
www.teamretro.com
Questions? Feedback?

29. A tour of TeamRetro...
Try an interactive demo

30. ANONYMITY
OPTIONS
SEE WHO’S
FINISHED
TIMEBOXED
ACTIVITIES
Capture ideas privately on
customizable templates
Whether your team members are in the same
room or distributed, ideas can be captured in
real-time individually to reduce groupthink.
Use anonymity to get more honest responses.
Set a timer or ask everyone to indicate when
they are ready to move to the next stage.
BRAINSTORM GROUP VOTE DISCUSS REVIEW

31. GROUPBRAINSTORM VOTE DISCUSS REVIEW
Group ideas into themes
Easily group similar ideas with a simple
drag-and-drop interface. TeamRetro will
suggest related ideas using natural
language processing, saving even more
time.
Choose your permissions - allow everybody
to group ideas, or just the facilitator.
AUTOMATIC
SUGGESTIONS
FACILITATOR
OR EVERYONE

32. VOTEBRAINSTORM GROUP DISCUSS REVIEW
Vote independently.
Focus on what’s important.
Set the number of votes and give everyone a say
on what’s a priority for discussion. Votes are
hidden until the next step so you don’t need to
worry about anchoring or bandwagons. You will
see when people have used their votes.

33. DISCUSSBRAINSTORM GROUP VOTE REVIEW
Deeper, focused discussions.
TeamRetro’s presentation mode brings everyone to the most voted ideas first.
Discuss each in turn, capturing your team’s comments, ideas and actions.

34. REVIEWBRAINSTORM GROUP VOTE DISCUSS
Review your actions
Assign actions to owners, set due
dates as needed. Your actions
from the last retro will also be
visible so you can review them in
case they need follow up.

35. BRAINSTORM GROUP VOTE DISCUSS SHAREREVIEW
Share the results
Make sure the opportunities identified in your retrospectives are not lost in a pile of post-its.
TeamRetro makes it easy to share your retro outcomes via email, slack, or import into the tool of your
choice.

36. Track actions between retrospectives
All your actions are added to your team’s action plan so you can track them from meeting to meeting.
Team members will receive a gentle reminder before actions are due. Mark actions completed, or
update with a comment, so your team knows where things are at.

37. A quick tour of team radars
and health checks...
Try an interactive demo - Heath Check
Try an interactive demo - Radar

38. ANONYMITY
OPTIONS
SEE WHO’S
FINISHED
TIMEBOXED
ACTIVITIES
Data driven discussions
Real-time, visual results show you the overall picture and trajectory over time.
Sort to discuss the most positive, negative or mixed response first.
SURVEY DISCUSS REVIEW SHARE

39. Review your and share your
actions
Assign actions to owners, set due
dates as needed - export to Jira,
GitHub, Asana, Azure DevOps,
Basecamp...
SURVEY DISCUSS REVIEW SHARE