Slides for my talk at AgileDC 2018

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Why Your Retros
Suck & What To
Do About It
Brian Sjoberg

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Agenda
Effective Retrospectives

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Agenda
• Sucky Retros
• What Causes Them to Suck
• Impacts of Sucky Retros
• What Can You do About It
• Retrospective Techniques
• Wrap Up

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Sucky Retros
Effective Retrospectives

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https://www.slashfilm.com/bill-murray-repeating-groundhog-day/

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https://www.inc.com/gordon-tredgold/bad-leaders-focus-on-blame-not-solutions.html

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https://phys.org/news/2017-12-bosses-snub-employees-engagement.html

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https://activerain.com/blogsview/4850283/a-loud-voice-does-not-make-a-respectful-voice

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https://goo.gl/images/WJHpN2

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What Causes Them
to Suck
Effective Retrospectives

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Table Exercise
• As a Table Exercise
• What has been your experience that makes
retrospectives (or any meeting) suck?

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What Causes Them to Suck
• Lack of preparation
• Poor facilitation
• No purpose & intended outcomes
• No variety
• Too many action items
• No follow through

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Impacts of Sucky
Retros
Effective Retrospectives

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Impacts
• No Continuous Improvement
• Attrition
• Lower Motivation
• Desire to Stop Doing Retros

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What To Do
About It
Effective Retrospectives

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What to Do About It
• Prepare
• Strong Facilitation
• Purpose with Intended Outcomes
• Vary Techniques
• Focused Improvement Plan
• Follow Up

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Diverge & Converge
Gather
Data
Set the
Stage
Generate
Insights
Decide What
To Do
Close

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Format
• Set the Stage
• Check In & Working Agreement
• Purpose & Agenda
• Review Prior Improvement Plan
• Gather Data
• Generate Insights
• Decide What to Do
• Close

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Set the Stage
• Check In
• Welcome All
• Appreciate Time
• Every Voice

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Set the Stage: Check In
• Table Exercise
• Have the option to pass, must say “pass”
• Favorite Food?

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Purpose & Agenda
• State reason for being here
• Provide the approach

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Review Prior Improvement Plan
• Very Important
• See if it made the
expected improvement
• For example, did stories
flow faster because we
adhered to our Definition of
Ready

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Gather Data
• Prior to Retro
• Bug Report
• Cycle Time
• Velocity
• Burndown Chart
• During Retro
• Techniques – We will cover these in more detail shortly

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Generate Insights
• Time to ask “Why?”
• What to do differently

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Decide What to Do
• Dot Voting
• Develop Focused
Improvement Plan to
Implement
• Rotating Champions

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Decide What to Do
• Measurable and Focused Action Plan
• Example
• Pair More – Bad
• Pair at least 2 hours per day – Good
• Post in Visible Area
• Check In Intermittently

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Close
• Review Action Plan
• Thank everyone for contribution

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Retrospective
Techniques
Effective Retrospectives

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Retrospective Techniques
• Gather Data
• Time line
• Start, Stop, Continue, or Mad, Sad, Glad or Proud, Sorries
• Starfish
• Team Health Check
• Generate Insights
• Speedboat/Sailboat
• 5 Whys

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Table Exercise
• Review Scenario
• Pick a technique or techniques
• What is your reason for selecting the technique?

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Techniques
• Gather Data
• Time line
• Start, Stop, Continue, or Mad, Sad, Glad or Proud, Sorries
• Starfish
• Team Health Check
• Generate Insights
• Speedboat/Sailboat
• 5 Whys

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Scenario 1
• Team has been together for a long time and their
throughput/velocity has flatlined

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Scenario 2
• Team has been together for a long time and their
throughput/velocity has flatlined

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Scenario 3
• Team is just forming and has had their first iteration
and didn't complete any stories

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Wrap Up
Effective Retrospectives

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Wrap Up
• Strong Facilitation
• Structure with Variety
• Set the Stage, Review Previous Improvement Plan
• Gather Data, Generate Insights
• Decide What to Do, Close
• Focused Action Plan with Follow Through

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Additional Material
• TastyCupcakes.org
• FunRetrospectives.com
• InnovationGames.com

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Contact Information
Brian Sjoberg - @onek2go
brian.sjoberg@excella.com
301-404-0765
www.AnAgileMind.net