Spice up Agile Retrospectives with Exercises

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Ben Linders Consulting
Exercises to spice up your agile
retrospective
Agile Cambridge
September 28, 2017

What you will learn
• Why and how of agile retrospectives
• Try out different retrospective exercises
• Create a safe environment to run a retrospective
• Practice skills for facilitating retrospectives

Warm-up Exercise
• Roles:
– Time keeper
– Scribe
• 1 min to brainstorm individualy
– One word: how you feel retrospective are going in your org/team
– One word: the main missing ingredient in your retrospectives
• 1 min for each paper
– Write down both words on flip chart
– Explain the words – discuss briefly

Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / Speaker
Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous improvement
Freelance Editor for InfoQ.com
Ben Linders
Books: Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives
What Drives Quality Continuous Improvement
Games: Agile Self-assessment Game

Purpose of Retrospectives
• Self-organizing teams are
responsible for their own WoW
• No “first time right”, adjust
along the way
• Ok to fail, if you learn from it
• Continuous improvement
Sustainable Improvement through Agile Retrospectives

Safety in Retrospectives
Open Culture where team members
Speak Up with Respect for each
other to Learn and Improve
Assure that people know why
retrospectives are done, and
have a mindset to improve Soft Skills Matter
• Prime Directive
• Safety Check and Warm-up exercises
• Explorer, Shopper, Vacationer, and Prisoner

State of Practice Retrospectives
First annual Agile Retrospectives Report:
“deeper understanding of how retrospectives are used
in the real world - how good we are at retrospecting”

Toolbox of Retrospective Exercises
• Teams differ
• Needs vary
• More value
You can plan a retrospective meeting,
and think about the exercise you
want to use, but be open to change it
on the spot whenever needed.
Toolbox of Retrospective Techniques

Exercise: Valuable Retrospectives
Possible Exercises:
• Car Brand
• 3S (Stop, Start, Spice up)
• Perfection Game
• One Word
• Faces Jack Sparrow
• Backpacking
• Constellation
• Sail boat futurespective
• Bring your own…

Retrospective Exercises
Practice retrospectives:
• 5 min: divide roles: Facilitator, team, observer(s)
read exercise & prepare
• 30 min: do the retrospective
• 10 min: evaluate exercise
• 20 min: share learnings
Evaluate
• How did it go?
• What did you learn?

Effective Retrospectives
Know the why
Good facilitation
Effective exercises
Frequent, small steps
Vital few actions

Inspiration for Retrospectives
Retrospective Exercises:
• amazon.com/dp/B00SWJO1DI
• benlinders.com/exercises/
• benlinders.com/ask-your-agile-retrospective-qu

Retrospectives Book
Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives
By Luis Gonçalves & Ben Linders
amazon.com/dp/B00SWJO1DI
Special Agile Cambridge:
Spice up Agile Retrospectives – with a Discount!
• 25% off with coupon “agilecam” at
benlinders.com/shop/gettingvalueoutofagileretrospectives/
• 25% off on Leanpub at
leanpub.com/gettingvalueoutofagileretrospectives/c/agilecam

Wrap up
What did you learn today:
 Why and how of agile retrospectives
 Try out different retrospective exercises
 Create a safe environment to run a retrospective
 Practice skills for facilitating retrospectives
Questions?

Thank you!Thank you!
Ben Linders
Independent Consultant Agile, Lean,
Quality & Continuous Improvement
info@BenLinders.cominfo@BenLinders.com
@BenLinders
www.linkedin.com/in/benlinderswww.linkedin.com/in/benlinders
www.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvieswww.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvies
www.benlinders.comwww.benlinders.com

Background Information

Designing your Retrospective
amazon.com/dp/B00SWJO1DI benlinders.com/exercises/

Facilitating Retrospectives
Facilitators
• Plan the retrospective
• Select appropriate exercises
• Chair the meeting
• Ensure action is taken
Making retrospectives effective
• Open & honest culture
• Focus on the process
• Remain independent
Facilitation Good Practices

Vital Few Actions
• Small Actions
• Frequent Change
• Focus on Value
• Stop Starting,
Start Stopping
• Kanban
Short Cycled Improvement

What Drives Quality
Deep Dive into Software Quality with Practical
Solutions for Delivering High Quality Products
for software developers and testers, architects,
Product Owners, agile coaches, Scrum masters,
project managers, and operational and senior
managers who consider quality to be important
Release date: September 30, 2017
Available on Amazon, leanpub, BenLinders

Continuous Improvement
Become aware of importance of
continuous improvement,
Explore how it’s engrained in agile
software development
Suggestions that you can use in your
daily work to improve continuously
Increase your organization's agility!
Leanpub.com/continuousimprovement
“Continuous Improvement is the act of continuously doing
whatever helps to become better and thus more valuable”

Retrospectives Book Bundle
Six successful retrospectives books
• Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives
• Fun Retrospectives
• Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your Retrospectives
• The Retrospective Handbook
• Retrospectives for Organizational Change
• The Retrospectives Kickstarter
These books will make your agile retrospectives rock!
Teams will love to do them :-).
leanpub.com/b/agileretrospectives
Discounted price: $30,48 (excl. VAT)

Getting More out of Agile & Lean
Practices for teams and stakeholders to develop the right
products, deliver faster, increase quality, and create
happy high performing teams.
Full Day Workshop:
Deploying practices effectively
Improve Collaboration
Tips & Trick for Agile & Lean
Improve Continuously
Increase your organization's agility!
BenLinders.com/agilelean

Assessing your Agility
Over 50 tools:
• Self-Assessment checklists
• Readyness checks
• Maturity assessments
• Agile health checks
• Measurements
• And much more!
Agile Self-Assessments

Retrospective Exercises
• Asking questions
• One-word retrospective
• Root Cause Analysis
• Timeline
• Flow and Energy
• Asking Why?
• Strenghts (Solution Focused)
• Perfection game
• Action priorities
• Retrospective of Retrospectives
• Teams with multiple customers
• Remote Teams
• Futurespectives
• Strengths/Core Qualities
Book with Agile Retrospective Exercises

Articles on Effective Agile
• Self-assessing how Agile you are
• Sustainable Improvement through Agile Retrospectives
• Working in a Sustainable Pace
• Becoming Agile and Lean
• Succes Factors for Using Scrum and Getting Benefits
• Process Improvement: The Agile Way
• Golden Rules for Agile Process Improvement
• How to deal with Resistance when Implementing Agile
• Managing Projects with Agile Teams
• Agile Project Management
• Establishing and Maintaining Stable Teams
• Getting Business Value out of Agile Retrospectives
• Sharing Knowledge is Power
• Are your Professionals Empowered?

Spice up Agile Retrospectives with Exercises

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