The document outlines the processes and importance of retrospectives in agile practices, emphasizing the need for teams to inspect and adapt their work after each sprint. It addresses common misconceptions about retrospectives, encourages focused conversations, and presents various activities to enhance engagement and effectiveness. The document also highlights the significance of fostering a culture of continuous improvement and collaboration within teams.

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Retrospectives
Inspect & Adapt the Process

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AGENDA
What is a Retro?
The Big Picture: Agile Fluency
Myth Busters
Focused Conversations
Cardinal Sins
Activities

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WHO WHAT WHY WHEN?
1. The Team
2. Inspect the Process
3. Improve the Process and Team
4. At the End of EVERY Sprint

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MARTIN FOWLER’S AGILE FLUENCY
Focus on Value

See progress from business perspective.
Redirect teams when needed.
Deliver Value

Release on cadence. Capture value
frequently. Reveal obstructions early.
Optimize Value

Make excellent product decisions. Eliminate
handoffs. Speed decision making.
Optimize for Systems

Cross-pollinate perspectives. Stimulate
innovation. Optimize value stream.
Team Culture Shift Team Skills Shift
Org Structure ShiftOrg Culture Shift

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Myth Busters
Excerpts from Mike Cohn’s Blog
Complacency is a state of mind
that exists only in retrospective: it
has to be shattered before being
ascertained.
-Vladimir Nabokov

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MYTH 1
The Team Is Too Good for Retrospectives
• Your team is not too good that it cannot
get better.
• It is highly unlikely that your team is so
good there are no further improvements
either to be identified or worth making.

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MYTH 2
Retrospectives Are Too Boring
• Mix things up by asking a
ScrumMaster from another
team to facilitate your
retrospective.
• Try a totally different
format for the meeting.

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MYTH 3
The Team Is Too Busy for Retrospectives
• A team that says it is too busy
to dedicate time to getting better
is taking a very shortsighted
view of the future.
• Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People by
Stephen Covey
(The Woodcutter)

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MYTH 4
The Team Doesn't Like Retrospectives
• It may just be too bad because
everyone on the team is expected
to be a professional.
• The difference between an
armature and a
professional is…

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Focused Conversations
Mini Lesson
Choose to focus your time, energy and conversation around people
who inspire you, support you and help you to grow you into your
happiest, strongest, wisest self.
-Karen Salmansohn

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The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace (2002). Ed. R. Brian Stanfield
for The Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers.
1.Objective
Questions about facts and
external reality uncolored by
feelings or opinions.
2. Reflective
Questions to call forth immediate
person reaction to the data.
3. Interpretive
Questions that draw out
meanings, values, significance,
and implications.
4. Decisional
Questions that elicit resolution,
bring the conversation to a close,
and enable the group to make a
resolve about the future.

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OBJECTIVE
• What was delivered this iteration?
• What deadlines or stories were missed?
• Was the sprint goal achieved?
• What bugs were discovered?

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The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace (2002). Ed. R. Brian Stanfield
for The Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers.
1.Objective
Questions about facts and
external reality uncolored by
feelings or opinions.
2. Reflective
Questions to call forth immediate
person reaction to the data.
3. Interpretive
Questions that draw out
meanings, values, significance,
and implications.
4. Decisional
Questions that elicit resolution,
bring the conversation to a close,
and enable the group to make a
resolve about the future.

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REFLECTIVE
• How do you feel about the work completed?
• What was the most difficult story to work on?
• When were you feeling pressure or
frustration?
• When did you feel like teamwork
was lacking?

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The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace (2002). Ed. R. Brian Stanfield
for The Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers.
1.Objective
Questions about facts and
external reality uncolored by
feelings or opinions.
2. Reflective
Questions to call forth immediate
person reaction to the data.
3. Interpretive
Questions that draw out
meanings, values, significance,
and implications.
4. Decisional
Questions that elicit resolution,
bring the conversation to a close,
and enable the group to make a
resolve about the future.

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INTERPRETIVE
• What do you think are the
underlying issues behind these
difficulties?
• How have you seen other teams
deal with these kinds of issues
successfully?
• What practical steps could we
take to deal with this?

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The Art of Focused Conversation: 100 Ways to Access Group Wisdom in the Workplace (2002). Ed. R. Brian Stanfield
for The Canadian Institute for Cultural Affairs. Gabriola Island, BC, Canada: New Society Publishers.
1.Objective
Questions about facts and
external reality uncolored by
feelings or opinions.
2. Reflective
Questions to call forth immediate
person reaction to the data.
3. Interpretive
Questions that draw out
meanings, values, significance,
and implications.
4. Decisional
Questions that elicit resolution,
bring the conversation to a close,
and enable the group to make a
resolve about the future.

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DECISIONAL
• What will the team try during the
upcoming sprint to ensure this
doesn’t happen again?
• What is the first step to solving
this problem?
• What metric will we use to
measure the effectiveness of this
change?

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1. Skipping retrospectives
2. Not enough time
3. Selective memory
4. Shiny Happy People Retro
5. Haters Gonna Hate
6. No action items
7. No action with action items
CARDINAL SINS OF RETROS

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THE PRIME DIRECTIVE
Regardless of what we discover, we understand and
truly believe that everyone did the best job they could,
given what they knew at the time, their skills and
abilities, the resources available, and the situation at
hand.
- Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for
Team Review

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Activity Bank
Keeping it Real (and Interesting)

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TEAM RADAR
What
1. Print individual radars.
2. Draw large team radar.
3. Add 5-8 topics.
4. Individually rate topics.
5. Connect dots.
6. Transfer to large radar
7. Discuss themes.
Why
• Everyone has equal
opportunity.
• Works for both “soft” and
“hard” issues.
• Quantifies the data.
• Identify discourse.

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BRAIN WRITING
What
1. One paper with ideas at the top.
2. Idea added in 1st section.
3. Paper passed to next person who
builds on idea.
4. Repeat steps 2 & 3.
Example: Given what you have heard and seen,
what should you do?
Why
• Find solutions.
• List future
actions.
• Peer review
solutions.

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SAILBOAT
What
1. The team records things that they
felt helped the Sprint move
forward or slowed it down.
2. select a team member to group
the sticky notes into similar
categories.
3. have the team vote on what they
feel are the critical groups to
focus on.
Why
• Identify issues.
• Distil issues to
themes.
• Prepare for root
cause analysis.

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FEEDBACK PLEASE
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