How to use a Retro to drive team improvement

In today's fast-paced business environment, teams must continuously evolve and adapt to stay competitive and high-functioning. One powerful tool for fostering continuous improvement within a team is an Agile retrospective, regardless if the team is an Agile team or not. In government, we tend to be “Wagile” (a blend between waterfall and agile processes).?

The retrospective is structured meeting allows teams to reflect on their past performance, identify what's working well, pinpoint areas for improvement, and make actionable plans for the future. ScrumAlliance has a good article on The Sprint Retrospective that can serve as a good blueprint if you’ve never run one before.

This past week I facilitated a 2023 retrospective with our teams, and it was very enlightening.? To set the stage – 3 teams were present in our work unit, along with our management team consisting of 2 Managers (myself included), our Director, and our Executive Director.? I split the teams into 3 groups ensuring that there was equal representation across the 3 groups.? As the facilitator, it’s important to set the ground rules so that everyone knows it’s a safe place to talk openly.? It’s also important for management to be involved and float between the teams and help the teams take a deeper look at some of the items on the board.

Reflecting on What Works

The first step in an Agile retrospective is to acknowledge and celebrate successes. Over the past year, what has the team accomplished? What processes or practices have led to positive outcomes? By recognizing achievements, team morale is boosted, and individuals feel valued for their contributions. Moreover, identifying what works well provides insights into the team's strengths, which can be leveraged to overcome challenges in the future. For example, one of our teams successfully implemented a new software application that ultimately saves lives.?It’s a big deal and involved multiple teams across our organization.?This achievement was celebrated and serves as a model for future projects.?But successes can be small and equally important, such as new staff’s onboarding experience within the team, or building and fostering a positive working relationship with our HR team, etc.? There are no wrong answers here.

Examining What Doesn't Work

Equally important is identifying areas where the team has struggled or encountered obstacles. During the retrospective, team members should openly discuss challenges they've faced and analyze the root causes behind them. This may involve examining communication breakdowns, bottlenecks in the workflow, or inefficiencies in existing processes. By addressing these issues head-on, the team can work towards finding solutions and preventing similar problems from arising in the future. For instance, if frequent scope changes have led to project delays, the team can explore ways to improve requirements gathering and stakeholder communication to mitigate this issue going forward.?One glaring issues that our management team wasn’t aware of is an external relationship issue that is hamstringing each of our 3 teams in a myriad of ways.?If we didn’t do this exercise, this never would have bubbled up.

Determining What to Stop Doing

Sometimes, the key to improvement lies in what the team decides to stop doing altogether. Throughout the past year, certain practices or behaviors may have proven to be ineffective or counterproductive. In the retrospective, team members should candidly discuss these aspects and evaluate whether they should be discontinued. This could include outdated procedures, redundant tasks, or habits that no longer align with the team's goals. By eliminating activities that drain time and resources without adding value, the team can streamline their workflow and focus on activities that drive results. For example, if weekly status meetings have become a repetitive ritual without meaningful outcomes, the team may opt to discontinue them in favor of more targeted communication channels.?This is also the perfect opportunity to identify those “we’ve always done it this way” processes that likely should?be refined or abandoned.? Keep in mind, that it doesn’t mean you need to stop doing it now, but an action item to follow-up on some of these might be a LEAN exercise to streamline processes (as an example, we LEANED an client request form in an IM/IT shop several years ago that reduced the process time from 3 weeks to 2 days by doing a deep dive on the process).?SixSigma has some background information on what is a LEAN process.

This part of the Retrospective was critical to have our Executive Director present.? The team had identified things that were not working so well in regards to a particular data holding we have and she provided context on how this is changing corporately, so to not put any time and effort into this.?You have no idea how many project and staff hours this saved and again – this never would have bubbled up if we hadn’t done this exercise and had our ED in the room to provide a lot of corporate oversight that we’re not normally aware of.

Taking Action and Committing to Change

Ultimately, the success of an Agile retrospective lies in the actions that follow. Once the team has identified areas for improvement and developed action plans, it's crucial to follow through on these commitments. This may involve assigning ownership of specific tasks, setting measurable goals, and establishing checkpoints to track progress over time. Additionally, fostering a culture of accountability and transparency ensures that everyone remains invested in the collective goal of continuous improvement. By regularly revisiting and revising their action plans, the team can adapt to evolving circumstances and drive meaningful change. Don’t just focus on the areas for improvement, as I also like the team to focus on the work we should keep doing as they might have ideas to make it even better.

Using a Retro on YOUR Team

In the dynamic landscape of modernizing business, Agile retrospectives serve as a vital mechanism for teams to reflect on their past experiences, learn from their mistakes, and chart a course for future success. By embracing a culture of continuous improvement, teams can harness the collective intelligence of their members to overcome challenges, innovate, and ultimately achieve their goals.

This 2023/24 Retrospective started as something I do with my team annually, but expanded to all 3 of our teams in our annual gathering.?I highly recommend this to anyone, regardless of your industry – finance, HR, IM/IT, etc.?

As we look back on the past year, let's leverage the insights gained from Agile retrospectives to propel our teams forward with confidence and resilience.