This document discusses recommendations from neuroscience and psychology research for improving retrospectives based on several studies. It suggests taking attendees to a new space, using novelty selectively in brainstorming vs converging stages, encouraging playfulness through toys and colors, allowing for silence and downtime for insight, getting people moving to improve cognition, avoiding "who" and "why" questions, and allocating more time than needed to ensure actions are decided upon. The document is authored by Mike Bowler, an agile coach with over 20 years of experience who draws on research in human behavior.

1. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
RetrospectiveScience
What can we learn from neuroscience and psychology to
improve our retrospectives?

2. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• Doorway effect
• We want to take attendees away from their normal day-to-day work
Movetoadifferentspace

3. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• “novelty may benefit creative performance when divergent thinking is required, but it could
inhibit creative performance when convergent thinking is required.”
• https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10400419.2013.813781
• Retrospectives use both divergent and convergent thinking, at different stages
• Use novelty when brain storming and coming up with new ideas
• Avoid novelty when clustering, converging and voting
Usenovelty(selectively)

4. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• “Want to innovate? Science says to be playful”
• https://www.creativitypost.com/index.php?p=psychology/
want_to_innovate_science_says_be_playful
• Use priming to switch people into a playful ego-state
• Toys, games, silly paperclips, a variety of different colours of sticky notes, etc
EncouragePlayfulness

5. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• “Individual differences in the tendency to solve problems insightfully rather than in a
deliberate, analytic fashion are associated with different patterns of resting-state brain
activity.”
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24405359
• Suggest that people ignore their phones
• Allow for uncomfortable silences
• Silent writing
Insightrequiresarestingstateinthebrain

6. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• “Brain plasticity and cognitive function are significantly improved by physical activity”
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5919946/
• Collect sticky notes in a place that requires people to move to get to it
• Have physical objects that need to be reordered in front of them
• Caution: Always be aware of mobility challenges faced by your participants.
• Not all people can easily stand up or move around.
Getpeoplemoving

7. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• Many people think better if their hands are busy so give them something to fiddle with
• Pipe cleaners, sticky notes, LEGO
• There are many studies on the benefits of doodling in increased memory retention and thinking
so encourage that.
Bring“fidget”things

8. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• Who and why questions, in the wrong context, can trigger someone’s amygdala, making it more
difficult for them to perform high-level, critical thinking
• “Who caused the server outage?”
• “Why wasn’t this reviewed?”
• When and how questions are always safer. Use them where possible.
• “When did the outage happen?”
• “How did we get to this point?”
AvoidWHOandWHYquestions
Who did
that?

9. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• We need to get to the point where we decide on actions to take away. If the meeting runs out of
time before we get to actions then we just wasted everyones time.
• We cannot “pick up” a retro at a later time to finish it off. The momentum will be gone and the
team won’t come up with anything useful
• I never allocate less than two hours and hope to let the team go early
Allocatemoretimethanyouthinkyouneed

10. Mike Bowler mbowler@GargoyleSoftware.com Twitter: @mike_bowler (905) 409-7052 (Pacific Time)
• A long time agile and technical coach who started his agile journey over twenty years ago with
XP.
• More about that at http://www.gargoylesoftware.com/mike_bowler
• A student of human behaviour - why we do what we do. This has taken me into neuroscience,
psychology, hypnosis, body language and a variety of other topics.
• More about that at http://www.unconsciousagile.com/
• Based in Kelowna BC and supporting clients around the world.
Aboutme