Retrospectives are one of the most effective continuous improvement practices, but how do you scale them beyond your team? This is the problem I faced when running regular retrospectives with more than 50 people. With many large organisations scaling Agile or adopting the likes of SAFe, we are going to run into this problem much more frequently. After all, we must not forget that Agile is underpinned by the ethos of reflection and improvement. During this talk, I will discuss how companies like Spotify and experts like Ben Linders have implemented scaled retrospectives, and where their stories have helped us and what didn’t work for us. I will share some practical tips on how we’ve run awesome scaled retrospectives and avoid wasting everyone’s time. Learn how you too can improve your entire organisation, not just your development team.

1. Continuous improvement at scale
Ryan McKergow
ryanmckergow
rmckergow

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UniSuper Digital program
MemberOnline
team
Services team EmployerOnline
team
Single member
view team
Program manager

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MemberOnline

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Team retro: December 2014

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More team retros…

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More team retros…

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Let’s fast forward a bit…

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First program retro:
September 2015

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First program retro:

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What happened next?

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Challenge 1:
It’s hard to focus on
continuous
improvement with
an imminent
release

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Challenge 2:
You can make
retros “cool”, but if
there’s no action
they’re not valuable

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What did we do?

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How do others run
retrospectives at
scale?

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Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)

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Retrospectives of retrospectives
(As described by Ben Linders)

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Spotify

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Spotify: Retrospective at scale - 2013

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Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

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How did we run
retrospectives at
scale going
forward?

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We adopted the concept of:
“Overall Retrospective”
… from Large Scale Scrum (LeSS)

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We adopted the concept of:
“Everyone involved
(including leadership)”
… from Retrospectives of retrospectives

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We adopted the concept of:
“Preparation and multiple
facilitators”
… from Spotify’s retrospective at scale

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We adopted the concept of:
“Improvement cards”
… from Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe)

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Program retrospectives:
Early 2016

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Program retrospectives:
Early 2016
1. Setting the stage (5 minutes – whole group)
1. Gather data (25 minutes – 2-3 groups)
1. Generate insights & decide what to do (25
minutes – whole group)
2. Close (5 minutes – whole group)

27. think sharp rmckergow
Program retrospectives:
Early 2016
1. Setting the stage (5 minutes – whole group)
1. Gather data (25 minutes – 2-3 groups)
1. Generate insights & decide what to do (25
minutes – whole group)
2. Close (5 minutes – whole group)

28. think sharp rmckergow
Program retrospectives:
Early 2016
1. Setting the stage (5 minutes – whole group)
1. Gather data (25 minutes – 2-3 groups)
1. Generate insights & decide what to do (25
minutes – whole group)
2. Close (5 minutes – whole group)

29. think sharp rmckergow
Program retrospectives:
Early 2016

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Program retrospectives:
Early 2016
1. Setting the stage (5 minutes – whole group)
1. Gather data (25 minutes – 2-3 groups)
1. Generate insights & decide what to do (25
minutes – whole group)
2. Close (5 minutes – whole group)

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Program retrospectives:
Early 2016

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How you can run
awesome
retrospectives at
scale

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Preparation

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Multiple facilitators

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Multiple groups

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Engagement from everyone

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Relentless focus on actions

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How you can be awesome at
Continuous improvement at scale
1. Preparation
2. Multiple facilitators
3. Multiple groups – diverge  converge
4. Engagement from everyone
5. Relentless focus on actions

39. elabor8.com.au
Thank you
Ryan McKergow
ryanmckergow
rmckergow

40. think sharp rmckergow
Image references
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0.gif [Accessed 23 May 2016].
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May 2016].
8. Anon, (2016). [online] Available at: http://joakimsunden.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Presenting-
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