This document discusses ways to make sprint retrospectives for agile teams more engaging and productive. It describes traditional retrospective formats and identifies potential pitfalls. The document then presents several interactive games and activities that can be used in retrospectives, such as personal shields, paper hat making, hot air balloons, and known issues tracking. These aim to surface themes and drive meaningful conversations in a more fun, creative way compared to standard retrospective questions. Resources for finding additional retrospective games are also provided.

1. S U P E R C H A R G I N G R E T R O S T O D R I V E
T E A M J O Y A N D P R O D U C T I V I T Y
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E
Andrew T Keener, MBA | CSM, CSPO
E M A I L : A N D R E W T H O M A S K E E N E R M B A @ G M A I L . C O M
B L O G : K E E N E R S T R AT E G Y. C O M
T W I T T E R : @ K E E N E R S T R AT E G Y
L I N K E D I N : H T T P S : / / W W W. L I N K E D I N . C O M / I N / A N D R E W K E E N E R
Will Anfeldt | CSM, CSPO
E M A I L : W I L L . A N F E L D T @ G M A I L . C O M
T W I T T E R : @ I R O N I C S I L E N C E
L I N K E D I N : H T T P S : / / W W W. L I N K E D I N . C O M / I N / W I L L A N F E L D T

2. W H AT I S A S P R I N T R E T R O S P E C T I V E ?
• Meeting held at the end of every sprint with full scrum
team
• Focus on what changes can be made to better the
team’s joy and productivity
• Start doing, Stop doing, Keep Doing
• Gain a health check from the team on how the sprint
went

3. • ARE YOUR RETROS CONSISTENT?
• HOW LONG ARE YOUR MEETINGS?
• DO YOU DO ANY TEAM BUILDING?
• ANY CREATIVE WAYS TO DRIVE ENGAGEMENT?
W H AT T Y P E O F R E T R O S D O Y O U
C U R R E N T LY H AV E ?

4. D O E S T E A M B U I L D I N G B E L O N G I N A
R E T R O ? !
T E A M B U I L D I N G

5. • 5 - 10 minutes in length
• Done at the start of the meeting
• Aims to increase engagement and meeting buy in
T E A M B U I L D I N G / I C E B R E A K E R
T E A M B U I L D I N G

6. • Personal Shields
• A quick game which gives everyone a chance to learn a
few non work related items about each team member
• Moderator provides a topic of conversation for each
quadrant of the shield, team members fill in each
quadrant
A F E W Q U I C K G A M E S
T E A M B U I L D I N G / I C E B R E A K E R S

7. P E R S O N A L S H I E L D S
T E A M B U I L D I N G

8. • Game focuses on the concepts of velocity and iteration/sprint
planning
• Moderator (customer) provides a sample paper hat and tasks the
team to make more paper hats
• The customer in this game tries to push the development team to
build as many paper hats in the iteration as possible
• Expected results are that as the customer pushes for larger amounts
of hats that the quality will become low
• Over time the team starts to learn what the actual velocity needed to
produce high quality paper hats that meet the customers expectation
M A K I N G PA P E R H AT S
T E A M B U I L D I N G / I C E B R E A K E R

9. N E W WAY S T O E N G A G E T H E T E A M
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

10. • If left unchecked sprint retros can quickly turn into gripe
sessions
• The soap box is hard to ignore when no one stops you
from getting on it
• Team can get into a habit of focusing on the “What went
wrong”
• Ignores potential opportunities to try new things
P I T FA L L S O F T H E T R A D I T I O N A L
S P R I N T R E T R O S P E C T I V E
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

11. • Never again ask the 3 questions…
• Use games and activities as a way to super charge
conversation and surface common themes
B R E A K I N G T H E S P R I N T
R E T R O S P E C T I V E M O L D
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

12. • Fun and interactive ways to get the team to
communicate
• out side the box activities to break up the norm
• Drive engagement through meaningful conversations
within the team
U S I N G G A M E S T O S U R FA C E T H E M E S
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

13. D R A W M E A S P R I N T
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

14. • How it works:
• Ask team members to silently reflect on how the
past sprint went. After 2 minutes ask them to start
drawing pictures to reflect their feelings
• Why it works:
• Drawing pictures is always faster and can be more
effective for collecting feelings. Pictures make it
easier to spot patterns
D R A W M E A S P R I N T
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

15. H O T- A I R B A L L O N
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

16. • Ask the team members to write notes and place them into
one of the following two areas:
• Fire and hot air - What helps up go higher? What are the
things that push us forward?
• Forces pulling down - What are the forces that pull us
down? What are the forces that slow us down?
• After the board is populated with enough items start to
group them within each category to pull out themes and
discuss as a team
H O T- A I R B A L L O N
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

17. K N O W N I S S U E S - PA R T 1
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

18. • Depending on team size split the team members down
into smaller groups
• Ask each group to write down the known issues
• Group the know issues and read to the whole group
• Ask everyone to think about solutions to the known issues,
write on a post it (another color than the known issues) and
place it next to the known issue
• Group conversations and action item creation
K N O W N I S S U E S - PA R T 1
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

19. K N O W N I S S U E S - PA R T 2
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

20. • Create a table that outlines WHO / WHAT / WHEN as titles
• Ask each member to select an action item from part 1, or write down
a concrete step they can commit to.
• Each committed item appears in the WHAT column
• Put the team members name next to there committed item in the
WHO column
• Define WHEN the item will be done and place it in the WHEN column
K N O W N I S S U E S - PA R T 2
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

21. • Focusing the discussion on a WHO/WHAT/WHEN format
• Connect each team member with clear actions they have defined and
committed too
• Allows team members to be clear about their commitments and
accountabilities
• Makes it clear to the whole group WHO is going to do WHAT by
WHEN
K N O W N I S S U E S - W H AT I T D O E S A N D
H O W I T W O R K S
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

22. H E L P F U L L I N K S
• http://tastycupcakes.org
• http://agile.dzone.com
• http://www.funretrospectives.com
U S E F U L W E B S I T E S F O R G A M E S
N O T Y O U R A V E R A G E R E T R O S P E C T I V E

23. T H A N K Y O U
Andrew T Keener, MBA | CSM, CSPO
E M A I L : A N D R E W T H O M A S K E E N E R M B A @ G M A I L . C O M
B L O G : K E E N E R S T R AT E G Y. C O M
T W I T T E R : @ K E E N E R S T R AT E G Y
L I N K E D I N : H T T P S : / / W W W. L I N K E D I N . C O M / I N / A N D R E W K E E N E R
Will Anfeldt | CSM, CSPO
E M A I L : W I L L . A N F E L D T @ G M A I L . C O M
T W I T T E R : @ I R O N I C S I L E N C E
L I N K E D I N : H T T P S : / / W W W. L I N K E D I N . C O M / I N / W I L L A N F E L D T