Boost your team with a structured retro

Reflection is key to growth and results, especially when talking about a team.

Development, like any other creative endeavor, is a combination of individual talent and collective execution. In the realm of collective work, it's essential to look back, understand, and adapt. This is where retrospectives come into play. Without them, you can easily run in circles, meeting the same problems sprint after sprint, which can make everyone frustrated. And with a bad retrospective, you'll get the same result.

So, I am going to share the framework that my team and I use. It’s not a strict guide, take what you think can be important for your team and make difference. We use a hybrid format, with Miro as the instrument for hosting retrospectives, but this structure can be applied to other instruments or in real life.

The Retrospective Steps:

Ice Breakers: These are crucial to create a relaxed environment. If the team members are comfortable, they're more likely to open up and share. Sometimes, you may have a team that is strongly against it, and that's the only reason to skip it. Here are some icebreakers that we use:

• Battery Levels: Ask everyone to put a sticker on a battery level diagram that aligns with their current energy. This allows people to share their feelings and start talking about what bothers them and what gives them energy, a great foundation for the next steps.
• Image Association: Personally, my favorite. Prepare and present a collection of various images and let each member select one that best represents their state or feelings during the sprint. It’s a visual and introspective method to begin the conversation. You will be amazed by the results.

Check Team Results: For example, we check out metrics on the retro to see our impact. Also, we check our team metrics here - velocity, and compare it to our median velocity.

Review Actions from the Previous Retrospective: Before diving into new feedback, revisit the commitments and changes decided in the last retrospective. This step can also be the last, but I strongly recommend starting with it, so people remember the context and actions from the previous retro. This serves two main purposes:

• Accountability: Were the actions implemented? If not, why?
• Continuity: It ensures the team is building upon previous insights.

Feedback Collection:

• Plus and Delta: Encourage team members to write down what went well ('plus') and what could have been better ('delta'). This method offers clarity and simplifies the feedback process. This is the most boring and stable method. Here we can be a little bit different and use imagination. For example, my team is very good at associations, so we sometimes use a picture of a ship and write down what, as a wind, was filling our sails, what was pulling us down like an anchor, what was hindering our journey.
• Presentation: Let each member present their points briefly. It’s essential to ensure everyone feels heard.

I recommend for first attempts to fix the number of cards and timing; otherwise, it can take too much time, and people start losing focus.

Grouping: There can be a lot of cards. Try to group them in similar areas; this will help you to focus on bigger problems. Don’t forget about positive cards! Retro is not only about how we can do better, but also about how we can consolidate success.

Voting: Somehow vote for cards. Give a fixed number of votes, for example, 5. For me, it’s okay if a person votes 5 for one card. Use Miro's voting tool to let the team prioritize the key issues they believe should be addressed first. This democratic method ensures a sense of ownership and collective decision-making.

Focused Discussion: Choose the top three voted items and discuss them in detail. I recommend 3 phases: people share what they think is important to discuss in this topic, generate action points that you can use to fix it, and choose a responsible person who will work on the action point next sprint. Ensure that the timing is strict to maintain productivity and prevent burnout.

In conclusion, the efficacy of a retrospective doesn’t lie in the session itself but in the actions that follow. Regularly conducting retrospectives without tangible actions will erode trust in the process. As an engineering manager or developer, it's crucial to not only reflect but act. Ensure that the team sees changes and benefits from the exercise. Only then will they truly believe in the power of retrospectives.

If you are a leader, take action points and lead by example. Try to track action points. We, for example, have a separate storage where we store metrics, velocity, and action points to keep track of them. Also, we create tickets inside our task tracker and take them to the sprint to see our actions and be able to see the progress or remind ourselves about it.

P.S. Write me in the comment if you would like me to share facilitation map in Miro