'Science' of making Teams effective lies in 'Art' of Retrospective

“What is the Retrospective and what do we do in this?” My team asked.
“Apne Girebaan mein jhaankna” – I replied in regional language. Lot of laughs in the room. I said, this Laugh & Pleasant Environment are the most desirable outcomes of Retrospective Meeting. Discussion continued..

To start our discussion on Retrospective Meeting (RM), I’ll highlight few facts first: -

• RM is Scrum Event mentioned in Scrum Guide
• In recent state-of-agile report, this is 2nd most used practice (81%) by the teams
• Importantly, scrum guide says, RM can be used to improve processes & practices to make it more Enjoyable & Effective for next sprint (and did not mention maximize output, increase productivity etc). 

RM is subjective discussion in which Team travel in past & analyse the experience. They make effort to make this experience more enjoyable & effective in the upcoming sprints. But why is RM so popular & widely adopted today?

To understand this, let's see history of society-

1. Late 18th Century, the world witnessed the Industrial Revolution. Many Industries setup & getting revenue & development was the main goal. In that duration, Bonded Labor became the inseparable virtue of industrial revolution. Since poverty, malnutrition, diseases were widespread in the society, people even accepted the form of bonded labor to earn food.
2. Second stage started in later half of 20th century & that was the Information Revolution. The societies around the world improved & people questioned bonded labor. Now Information became the weapon. Organizations & people were hungrier for information. However, people were not objecting the oppressiveness at their workplace.
3. 3rd and current phase - 21st century & that is Social & Psychological Revolution. Today in the Internet Age, the Information is not hidden. But people are more conscious about their social & self-respect, psychological safety, workplace rights, work-life balance & right to choose how they want to operate.

Embracing change is Agile. We have seen drastic change in people psychology since 18th century. It is necessary to make efforts so that these social & psychological needs can be taken care of and humanity-factor is not extinct at workplace. RM gives the opportunity to Teams to talk in these dimensions and perhaps one of the most used practice. But do you think it is a simple discussion where team Inspect the past, Analyse the improvements, and Experiments and Adapt the new way of working?

Unfortunately RM is the event which has most anti-patterns, like:

1. Only 1 or 2 persons speak
2. People feel like prisoner
3. Team suggest skipping retro for one sprint
4. Only Blaming, no productive discussion
5. Psychological insecurities in highlighting issues,

and therefore SM should know the art of facilitating RM. Being an Agile Enabler, it is subject of continuous learning for all of us how to blur these anti-patterns and make retrospective more effective.

Facilitating Retrospective Meeting

During my journey of being an Agile Enabler, I have performed number of experiments to facilitate 'effective' retrospective. But it is obvious that one method which works well for one team, can be disaster for another. Since every team has unique people, psychologies, challenges & strength, the way of discussing the things will be quite different. Still, there are few methods which I found effective with most of the team and I am sharing here with all of you.   

1. Initiate RM (Ice-breaker) 

When all members are present for RM, I initiate with defining sprint in “One” word from one theme. Few Theme:

• Food: (Chosen words – Bitter Gourd, Milk, Fruit-Juice)
• Holiday Destination: (Chosen words – France, Australia, Sahara Desert, Syria, Taliban)
• Railway: (Chosen words – Rajdhani, Unreserved Coach, Train cancelled, Bullet)
• More....

When members chose these words & gave their reasons, in first 5-10 minutes we actually have good idea in which direction our RM will go and what are the points should be discussed.

2. Chose RM Theme

Every RM meeting has one specific agenda i.e. what can we change in our process so that it might be more enjoyable & effective. And it comes in form of ‘went well’, ‘improve’, ‘Action Item’.
But if we just discuss this, it will be monotonous, boring & might not be effective. Based on my research & experience, I used below:

Mythology Theme

• Brahma (To introduce), Vishnu (Continuity), Mahesh (Destroyer/Stop)
• Boon – Appreciation, Positive
• Bane – Problem, Improvement, what held us back

Cuisine Theme

• Junk Food (Stop), Fruits (Continuity), Seasonal Veg (To introduce)
• Water – Positive and appreciation
• Overeating – Problem, Improvement, why unable to operate

Other Themes like

• Weather (Cloud, Rain, Sun)
• 3L (Like, Learn, Lack)
• Satisfaction (Mad, Sad, Glad)
• KALM (Keep, Add, More Less)
• And more..

3. Facilitation Techniques

We decided themes but I, as SM, will adopt different way of RM facilitation so that I can make people to think more creatively and identify the core areas to discuss. Below are few facilitation techniques which I adopted:

1. 1,2 ka 4 (or 1,2,4) – It is done in 3 rounds. First every member writes 3 improvement separately. In second round, team of 2 people formed and they need to come up with 3 most critical issues out of their combined 6. And so on. It highlights the most critical issues as team assign ranks.
2. Hot Air Balloon – Air balloon rises because of hot air. But excessive sandbags may hold it back. Our team is Balloon. In defined timebox, we identify Hot-airs and Sandbags separately and discuss collectively.
   
3. Sailboat – This is a kind of scenery in which boat (team) need to reach an island (goal) but there are some anchors (impediments) which are holding boat back and some rocks and stones (risks). Team identify each in based on previous sprint.
   
4. Outings – Occasionally, we go out for Retrospective-on-Lunch. This is simple discussion but during lunch.

4. My Favorite Facilitation Initiatives

Few techniques are my favorite and every time, no matter how many times repeated even with the same team, these hit the core. Below:

1. 2 Truth ~ 1 Lie – Every member needs to write 2 Truth and 1 Lie on sticky notes in a timebox. Once timebox is over, each member take chance and reveal his truths and lie. Other members need to identify which is truths and which is lie. It highlights the area where members are not on same page. It is very helpful in identifying the dysfunctions in the team.   
2. Story Cube – 
   
   I arranged the story cubes. Every member needs to pick one cube and throw it on the table. Figure which will be on top surface, need to be described with Sprint happenings by the member. This technique can highlight the issues which traditional RM might not. E.g. – 

• One member got the ‘Snake’ figure and I was amazed by his reasoning. He said “The snakes are very stubborn. I try hard to throw these away from my house, but they are back. I can say these are like “Bugs” in our system, we try hard to resolve but these are back because we are not targeting Technical Debt and applying patches on few places. 
• Another member got figure in which someone was lifting the weight. S/he said this is “XYZ” in our team who really do most of the work. In our team, work is not equally divided.

These are few examples what this technique delivered but I never got these points highlighted through other techniques.

Conclusion

The RM is one event in which anyone can apply any creativity to make team to think in 360 degree. The objective is to inspect & discuss the stuff in productive & healthy environment. And, this can’t be done without Trust. If we see Maslow’s hierarchy of need where Psychological needs are at bottom or  5 Dysfunction of Team by Lencioni where Trust is at bottom, we shall understand how much necessary are these to take care to build a effective & happy team.

Therefore, to build trust and protect members psychology, we have a mandatory practice for everyone to highlight:

Heard – I appreciate that I was heard at.. or I believe I could have been heard at..

Seen – I appreciate that I was seen at.. or I believe I could have been seen at..

Respected – I appreciate that I was respected at.. or I believe I could have been respected at..

Last but not the least - Mostly teams discuss the appreciation in RM. But we are one of very rare teams who believe in Confessions also. Any member can confess anything not done correctly or ethically by him/her in the sprint. Believe me this is very tough to confess in front of team & that is the starting of building trust. I led my team by examples & I still remember my first confession made 4 years back:

“I confess during the sprint I lose my temper and used some words which I should not. I promise my team that I’ll improve my capability to handle the situations & try to maintain my temper.”

Lastly, I remember someone saying correctly –
 “A sprint closed without a effective retrospective is as good as a surgery finished without the stitches”