As your Team looks back on the work completed, there are bound to be some successes and failures. So look honestly for areas to learn and improve for future projects. In this article, we’ll look at what makes a good retrospective so you can engage your group in meaningful discussions and reflections.
Benefits of a Retrospective:
1. Promote Transparency
2. Improve Collaboration
3. Create Better Features
4. Reduce Risks
Welcome! Today, we will work on a visual canvas called 'rose, bud, thorn.' Leading up to [insert milestone], we need to reflect on how things are going and raise any potential risks or challenges to our goals and objectives.
To drive positive, future-forward change, we must capitalize on what drives us, intercept challenges and barriers, and build trust across the team. We will use a fun metaphor to help guide our discussion: a ship and its crew. I will explain more in a few minutes.
Review Agenda…
To have a productive and respectful discussion that fosters positive energy, creativity, and ambition, I have put together a few 'Rules of Engagement for our workshop:
- Be critical of ideas, not people
- Allow everyone to contribute
- Ask for clarification
- Collaborate, don’t compete
Does anyone have any to add?
Workshops often have different types of participants. Some feel like it's a break from the day-to-day, others may feel they are being held hostage and are too busy to be here, and some may feel like they have all the answers. Therefore, workshops take time to prepare and engagement from attendees to be successful.
Today, I'll ask everyone to channel an explores’ mindset instead and be open to the discussions, themes, and activities we will work through together. Everyone here has a role to play and value to add. Does anyone have any questions?
If there are no questions, let's do a quick warm-up and start on a positive note. I want everyone to take 3 minutes and jot down a few highlights, things you are proud of, or anything you are proud of from the last [insert time frame, sprint, project milestone].
As you are thinking about what is going well, try to identify at least one quick win we have accomplished or could reach with minimal time or effort.
.... Ok, let's take turns sharing our notes. It would be great if everyone could read out their top highlight and quick win. In the interest of time, try to share something that hasn't been mentioned or build on another person's perspective with your own two cents
.... Ok, let's take turns sharing our notes. It would be great if everyone could read out their top highlight and quick win. In the interest of time, try to share something that hasn't been mentioned or build on another person's perspective with your own two cents
Excellent work, everyone; we have certainly accomplished quite a bit as a team. Let's jump into the central part of our meeting. Our main objective today is to reflect on [insert project, milestone, or sprint details here].
This exercise will help us deconstruct what is helping and driving our effort forward and what things might stand in our way. Think of it like a pre-retrospective where we can try to foresee challenges ahead.
The retrospective is a template we will work to fill out as a team. The top parts of the image represent what is working or helping us. In the bottom part of the image are things that could hurt or slow us down.
Discussion Prompt
What would be the value of this to the user?
What business value could this deliver?
How would this add to the experience?
What could be added to improve? What is missing?
How is this different than the current experience?
How do competitors do this? How would they respond?
Wonderful. Now let’s take turns and share what is navigating us, will select the top three common traits serving as our rose.
Thank you for sharinG!. Now let’s take turns and share what budding opportunities we see.
Great job. Now let’s take turns and share what is slowing us down. Let us review the groups thorns.
This brings our session to an end. I'll send out the actions we discussed and set a date for the next team meeting. Have a great day, and thanks again for contributing.