Agile Retrospectives: A Practical Guide for Catalyzing Team Learning and Improvement

✍ Scribed by Esther Derby; Diana Larsen; David Horowitz

• Publisher: The Pragmatic Bookshelf, LLC
• Year: 2024
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 284
• Edition: Second Edition
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

In an uncertain and complex world, learning is more important than ever before. In fact, it can be a competitive advantage. Teams and organizations that learn rapidly deliver greater customer value faster and more reliably. Furthermore, those teams are more engaged, more productive, and more satisfied. The most effective way to enable teams to learn is by holding regular retrospectives. Unfortunately, many teams only get shallow results from their retrospectives. This book is filled with practical advice, techniques, and real-life examples that will take retrospectives to the next level—whether your team is co-located, hybrid, or remote. This book will help team leads, scrum masters, and coaches engage their teams to learn, improve, and deliver greater results.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Table of Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Part I—Nuts and Bolts
1. Help Your Team Inspect and Adapt
Five Phases of a Retrospective
Phase 1: Set the Stage
Phase 2: Gather Data
Phase 3: Generate Insights
Phase 4: Decide What to Do
Phase 5: Close the Retrospective
Summing Up the Benefits of This Structure
2. A Retrospective Custom-Fit to Your Team
Design a Retrospective for Your Team’s Needs
Consider the Team’s Context
Shape the Focus
Determine Duration
Select a Location and Setting
Allocate Time Within the Retrospective
Select Activities
DIY Activities
What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
3. Leading Retrospectives
The Facilitator’s Role
Manage Activities
Manage Time
Manage Yourself
Just Add People
4. Managing Group Dynamics
Create Working Agreements
Draw Out Quiet People
Create Space for Everyone
Manage Power Differences
Avoid Blame
Deal with Emergent Issues
Handle Challenging Dynamics
Remember Your Own Oxygen Mask
Part II—Selecting Activities
5. Activities to Set the Stage
Get to Know the Activities
Introduce the Focus Topic and Agenda
Check-In Question (Includes One-Word Check-In)
ESVP
Focus On/Focus Off
Retrospective Working Agreements
Variation: Team Working Agreements as Meeting Ground Rules
Variation: Meeting Ground Rules for Conflicts or Controversy
Retrospective Prime Directive
Fill-in-the-Blanks
Temperature Reading
Temperature Reading Alternatives
The Stage Is Set
6. Activities to Gather Data
Get to Know the Activities
Simple Objective Data Discussion
Gathering Data from an Improvement Action
Simple Subjective Data Discussion
Satisfaction Histogram
Team Radar
Timeline
Variation: Timeline with Color-Coded Dots
Shared Data Provides the Foundation for Improvement
7. Activities to Generate Insights
Get to Know the Activities
Pattern Spotter Questions
Fishbone Diagram
Circles and Soup
Force Field
Brainstorming/Filtering
Prioritize Issues
With Insights It’s Time to Decide What to Do
8. Activities to Decide What to Do
Get to Know the Activities
Short Subjects
Express Preference/Dot Voting
Gradient of Agreement
Compare Options
Impact and Energy Decision Criteria
Design Experiments
First Steps Toward Action
9. Activities to Close the Retrospective
Get to Know the Activities
Hopes and Wishes
One “Now” Thing
Learning Matrix
Offer Appreciations
Helped/Hindered/Hypothesis (HHH)
Return on Time Invested (ROTI)
Wrapping Up
10. Retrospectives for Common Scenarios
A New Team Is Forming
After a Successful Release
Poor Feedback from Customers After Delivering a New Feature
After an Outage or Issue
Time to Deliver Features Is Increasing
An Experienced Team That Doesn’t Feel the Need to Run Retrospectives Anymore
New Team Forming, Issues Loom
A Team with Low Psychological Safety
A Conflict on the Team
Elephant in the Room
Flows, Not Plans
Part III—Considerations
11. Retrospectives When the Team Isn't Colocated
Two Principles for Remote Retrospectives
Putting the Principles into Practice
Asynchronous Retrospectives
Hybrid Retrospectives
General Guides for Adapting Exercises
Whiteboards or Retrospective Tools?
Two Final Tips
12. Catalyzing and Sustaining Change
Action Items
Experiments
Picking a Next Step
The Change Ambassador
Influence Others
Change Your Response
Learning
Visualize Your Improvement Item
Monitoring for Results
Supporting Larger Changes
Make It So
13. Elevating Issues Beyond the Team's Control
Taking Responsibility
Circles and Soup
15% Solutions
Radiate Information Out
Retrospective Radiators
Why Not Include Managers?
Retrospective of Retrospectives
Subjective Impact Analysis
Scaling Frameworks
It Doesn’t Have to Be That Way
14. Overcoming Objections
The Vicious Cycle of Disillusionment
Nothing Changes Anyway
Retrospectives Are Boring
No Difficult Conversations
We’re Too Busy
We’re Not Agile
Retrospectives Only Lead to Blame
Unhelpful Manager Beliefs
Don’t Be Deterred
15. Continuing the Learning Journey
Retrospectives in General
Facilitation
Continuous Improvement
Join the Community
Continued Learning
A1. Potential Prework Questions
A2. Activities Reference Sheet
Bibliography
Index
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