Retro 66
“How can we work together to improve now, so our next project or service is demonstrably better in the future?”
The retrospective is a constructive glance at the recent past to enable a better future.
Retrospectives (interim-project or post-project reviews) provide an opportunity for the team to reflect on how the previous phase or the last project went, and to capture lessons learned that will help enhance future performance.
It is the process of doing retrospective that is more important, than the documentation around it.
It is the team that is involved in doing the retrospective that is more important, than the speed at which you do it.
Retrospectives enable team members to think about, how they have been working. This enables team members to critique about themselves and identify improvement ideas to improve themselves.
If you give solutions to associates, associates will always depend on you. If you coach associates to find their own solutions, you will have built future leaders.
Teams should ask the following 6 Questions in retrospectives:
- What are the good perceptions created in the external customer’s heart and mind in the past phase / project?
- What are the not-so-good perceptions created in the external customer’s heart and mind in the past phase / project? Could we have done something differently to address the same?
- What are the good perceptions created in the internal customer’s heart and mind in the past phase / project? Could we have done something differently to leverage the same?
- What are the not-so-good perceptions created in the internal customer’s heart and mind in the past phase / project? Could we have done something differently to address the same?
- What are the good perceptions created in the team’s heart and mind in the past phase / project? Could we have done something differently to leverage the same?
- What are the not-so-good perceptions created in the team’s heart and mind in the past phase / project? Could we have done something differently to address the same?
Post the discussion about each of the above 6 questions, the following 6 questions should be asked and actioned.
- What still mystifies us / cannot be explained?
- What do we agree to disagree, and yet move forward as a team?
- What do we want to stop doing?
- What do we want to continue doing?
- What do we want to start doing?
- What do we do innovatively?
Things to plan for before, during and after the retrospective meeting:
- The Team should drive the retrospective meeting
- A Project Manager / Service Manager /Scrum Master should only add where required
- Sponsors, Senior Management can participate but should limit their interactions to coaching purposes only
- Customers can also be a part of the meeting and should be encouraged to participate with the team
- Use effective meeting practices such as the Nominal Group Technique
- Use project data to make objective decisions and stay away from your own perceptions while deciding on action items
- Prioritize the improvement actions
- Create a concrete action plan to implement and track all the changes and action items, with roles and responsibilities and timelines defined
