Retrospective how we utilized as part of our agile journey

1. Retrospective –
Key to success
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2. Retrospective – at EY
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• A retrospective is a meeting held after a product Increment has been delivered to
discuss what happened during the product development and release process, with the
goal of improving things in the future based on those learnings and conversations.
• This was followed at EWT where we developed a global tool in iterations. At the end of
every iteration, retrospective sessions were conducted to learn from the prior iteration.
Agile process was used to build this product successfully in 35 sprints. Team
foundation server was used to track the agile sprints and backlog.

3. Why Retrospective
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• Those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat those mistakes in the
future.
• An agile retrospective had forced the entire team to pause and reflect on what
transpired and discussed what worked and what didn’t during the project.

4. Retrospective - Format
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• All retrospective meetings were conducted in the following format
• Introduction - Every session was started with an introduction to the process and making
sure everyone was welcome to contribute.
• Set the stage – TEAM reviewed the last iteration retrospective action items and how they
were addressed in the last iteration.
• Gather Data – This is the crux of the session to understand what happened during the
iteration. Data is gathered several way. 2 of the options that were practiced as part of the
project are listed in the following slides.
• Generate Insight – was used to build on the data gathered to identify few root causes
• Decide what to do – Team picked up one or two topic using 80-20 rule to decide what can be
implemented in the next sprint.
• Close – was conducted by having team celebration on the successful completion of a sprint.

5. Retrospective games - ESVP
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• ESVP –Ask team members to think about how they feel about the last iteration. Have
them write down whichever of the following personality types best identifies their
outlook:
• Explorer: is prepared and excited about the prospects of what lies ahead. They are ready to
learn new things in service of the product.
• Shopper: will hear what you have to say, read what you bring, but they’re really only in the
market for one new idea.
• Vacationer: considers time in a meeting as time they are not working. They are here in body,
at the beach in spirit.
• Prisoner: is forced to be here. If they could be anywhere else without penalty, they would be.
• Team collected the results and displayed them on the board with the totals. Lead
prepared a chart with a quick bar graph for review.
• Graph was used to see the breakdown, and to generate ideas that will make this and
future iterations more valuable for all.

6. Retrospective games - Mad, Sad, Glad
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• This is one of the most popular retrospective ideas because it helps your team think
critically about their feelings.
• Mad - Things that the team found frustrating in the last iteration
• Sad - Things that the team found disappointing in the last iteration
• Glad - Things that made the team happy and excited in the last iteration
• Ask your team to take time to think about the most recent iteration and create a sticky
note for each idea or experience that made them mad, sad, or glad. Create a 10-
minute timebox for participants to brainstorm and add their ideas to each column.
• Participants should keep their ideas private so a variety of honest ideas are
provided. Doing this anonymously is the best way to collect honest feedback as it
allows team members to think independently and to avoid being influenced by others’
experiences or input. When the timebox ends, the participants should finish adding
their ideas to each column.

7. Conclusion
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• Retrospectives were designed to organize actions that lead to change. This helped the
team to ensure follow-through and to create and save SMART action items with each
topic the team that were discussed.
• Everyone left the room with the feeling that we achieved something useful and that the
meeting was worth it