Big Retro - Greg Wright, Director of Software Development at Kepware

1. LIGHTNING TALK:
BIG RETRO
Greg Wright
Director of Software Development
1/11/2017

2. 2
– 18 Months
– 10 Agile Teams
• (Most practicing Scrum)
– 50 Engineers
• (including 40% growth)
– 900 Man Months
• (144000 Man Hours)
BIG RETRO: KEPSERVEREX 6.0 EFFORT, BY THE NUMBERS
– 160+ Products Refactored
– 2 New languages supported
– 300+ Team Retros
– 120+ Team Kaizens
– 1 Acquisition
– 1 Successful Release

3. 3
Our Question:
– How can we take something that seems like
this:
– And make it feel like this?
Our Answer:
– Engineering wide retro sessions
• Engineers determine the topics
• Breakout sessions scheduled and negotiated
(dynamic agenda)
• Discussions, owners and actions
• Beer and snacks and beer
– Borrowed elements from “Open Space”
• http://openspaceworld.org/
• http://openspaceagility.com/
BIG RETRO: THE CHALLENGE

4. 4
• Scrum Masters and management planned and socialized the event
• Allowed 2+ weeks notice for ideas to cook
• Scrum Masters collected Retro notes and shared with their teams
• Participation was optional
• We prepared for the unknown!
BIG RETRO: THE SETUP

5. 5
– Opening
• Intro and ground rules
– Topic Identification
• Topics go on board (group activity)
– Agenda Creation/Negotiation
• Topics discussed, aggregated, finalized
• Schedule takes shape
– Break
• People plan their itinerary
– Breakout discussions held
• Notes taken, actions documented
– Closing
• Topics and actions summarized
• Retro the retro
– Law of Two Feet encouraged
BIG RETRO: THE EVENT
Topics included: Security Testing, Release Regression, Standards, Device Management, Docutecture, Communication,
Automation, Project Estimates, Build System, Late Changes, Wild Card

6. 6
BIG RETRO: THE AFTERMATH
Artifacts: Retro of Retro: Follow-up:

7. 7
• What made it a success:
– Continuous improvement is core to our culture
– It was fun
– People felt safe
– People were prepared for difficult topics
– We made a commitment to follow up
– We had the support of the organization
BIG RETRO: SUMMING UP