Retrospectives are a tool that a team can use for positive change to shift from following a process to driving their own process, becoming self-managed. In this article, Rachel Davies, a founding member of the UK's XP community, offers help for teams who have ideas for improvements but aren't sure how to get them off the ground. This article covers the steps required to run a retrospective and implement its results.
Some teams already run formal or informal "post mortem" meetings at the end of each project, but for Agile teams this is too long an interval. Retrospectives must be frequent to remain adaptable to change. This improves team communication and increases their rate of learning. Agile teams want to learn during the project, not after, to improve their chances of success.
But do teams need formal instruction? How hard can it be to run a retrospective?
One common complaint heard about retrospectives is "It's a waste of time, we never implement what we learn!" In fact, looking back is only half of the retrospective pattern. Reflection is not learning. To bring about learning and improvement, it is necessary to identify areas for improve and explicitly document a brief action plan for which the team becomes accountable. When a team is doing this regularly, it may seem that retrospectives are not needed because they never encounter dramatic crises. But Davies reminds us:
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Some teams already run formal or informal "post mortem" meetings at the end of each project, but for Agile teams this is too long an interval. Retrospectives must be frequent to remain adaptable to change. This improves team communication and increases their rate of learning. Agile teams want to learn during the project, not after, to improve their chances of success.
But do teams need formal instruction? How hard can it be to run a retrospective?
Expecting magic to happen just by virtue of bringing the team together in a room to discuss recent events is unrealistic. Like any productive meeting, a retrospective needs a clear agenda and a facilitator to keep the meeting running smoothly. Without these in place, conversations are likely to be full of criticism and attributing blame. Simply getting people into a room to vent their frustrations is unlikely to resolve any problems and may even exacerbate them.Davies proposes that thoughtful facilitation can help teams fearlessly talk about past experiences without resorting to blame. Strategies include setting ground rules, using the "retrospective prime directive" and allowing team members to attend voluntarily.
One common complaint heard about retrospectives is "It's a waste of time, we never implement what we learn!" In fact, looking back is only half of the retrospective pattern. Reflection is not learning. To bring about learning and improvement, it is necessary to identify areas for improve and explicitly document a brief action plan for which the team becomes accountable. When a team is doing this regularly, it may seem that retrospectives are not needed because they never encounter dramatic crises. But Davies reminds us:
The power of regular retrospectives and regular exercise is that they prevent big problems from happening so there should be no war stories or miraculous transformations! Embracing retrospectives helps a team find tune their process at a sustainable pace.Read the InfoQ article: How To: Live and Learn with Retrospectives by Rachel Davies.
Related news: click on the Retrospectives tag below to see all news and content on InfoQ about this topic.