NOTE: I came across this when I was cleaning up old notes. It is an excerpt from an email that I once sent to a client explaining my irrational love for agile retrospectives as an anchoring ritual for keeping the flywheel going in a disciplined delivery organization.
You can take or leave any of the guidance, I just found the thinking interesting enough to where it might help someone out there get unstuck or figure out a new way of doing things.
- I think targeting 4 per year will be a good starting point
- I like to anchor retrospectives to the end of releases, but since release management isn't a formal process yet, there needs to be another anchor
- Given the current (redacted) structure is based on a quarterly review / refresh, I think scheduling retrospectives as a complementary offshoot to the (redacted) is a good logical choice - i.e. doing a retrospective either prior to / following the leadership review presents an opportunity to more closely align delivery to shared company goals
- Don't over-complicate / over-formalize / over-structure the first 2-3 meetings
- An "ideal" format will emerge over time if you allow it
- But obviously you need to start somewhere
- I would focus on three key themes
- Celebrating wins
- Capturing knowledge
- Continuous improvement
- What were our big wins?
- How were they impactful to the business?
- Ties work to business performance and objectives
- What did we learn from them?
- Learning from wins is just as important, if not more so, than learning from losses
- Don't pour cold water on the win, but nothing ever goes 100% to plan, and it's important to be able to take the good with the bad and grow from both
- Focusing on the positive builds enthusiasm and momentum
- What were notable contributions from the team?
- Great opportunity for team cohesion by having everyone call out individual contributions and spread kudos around in front of the full group
- BONUS IF YOU CAN CELEBRATE A MUTUAL CUSTOMER WIN!
- What did we learn?
- I would always have everyone do a "TIL" (Today I Learned) when it was their turn to speak and give 1-3 "nuggets" of knowledge that they picked up during the period (in our case quarter) being reflected on
- This information needs to be captured in a KMS (possibly Notion, possibly something homegrown in Salesforce)
- Right now (redacted) does not have a cohesive knowledge management system - definitely recommend as a potential (redacted).
- This serves dual purpose - gives everyone a chance to strengthen their knowledge through teaching / presenting, and gives the full team the opportunity to learn something new
- What did we get better at?
- I love calling back to previous retrospectives or examples that occurred during the period being reflected on to demonstrate how the team did something well that it had previously struggled with, to demonstrate the power of learning and continuously improving...think of it like a "Most Improved" award.
- What did we do really well?
- Don't overlook what's working just because it's working. Like celebrating wins, highlighting consistently high performing approaches, processes, flows, hacks, or whatever...if something stood out as being good, bring it up!
- What can we do better next time?
- Reflection and finding opportunities for individual or team growth, process improvement, or other initiatives that could provide a rising tide to lift all boats.
- What do we need to stop doing?
- Sometimes shit done broke and just needs to be taken out back and Old Yeller'ed.
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