Time Machine Retrospective

Object of Play

The Time Machine retro is an adapted timeline retrospective that is useful when looking back over a  longer period. It is very useful at Team re-shuffles,  end of products.. to look back and celebrate the great things that were produced, look back at lessons learned and applying a special ingredient to bring back those lessons to the current time.

Number of people

Up to 30 people.

Duration : 2 hours for large groups

Tools

• Co-located
• A board with a large time travel drawing
• Distributed
• A distributed retrospective tool, ex Conteneo, A time travel drawing

How

Preparation

Prepare the wall with a time travel road towards the future.

Include an artful participation poster and the prime directive :

"Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand."

This new take of looking back in the past uses a 1-2-4-All Liberating structure to make sure everyone has an equal opportunity to contribute. The initial individual answers are weighted against the other participants answers and the duplicates are removed.

For exercises with < 16 people 1-2-4-All is not needed.

Online in conteneo, create a drawing that can be used as a background in a new framework.

Part 1: Opening Stage 10’

Write down the timeline the team is going to reflect on and the area we are focussing on.

Explain the team we are not going to look for blame: We are looking for events in the past and things that can be improved, not looking for blame in the people!

Distribute sticky notes to each player with colors for :

• Something that was a success
• Something that could have gone better
• Something you learned

Online the conteneo framework should have the different color stickies in its framework palette.

Part 2: Exploration Stage 1 : 20’

1-2-4-All

1. 5’ Each individually on their own post-its : success / gone better / learned
2. 5’ Participants team up per 2 : explain their items to each other and remove duplicates and create new ones as needed
3. 5’ Groups of 2 find another group of two and form groups of 4: explain their items to each other and remove duplicates

Part 3 : Exploration Stage 2 : 10 ‘

The groups of 4 select a person to take turn to add their items on the timeline, giving a short word of explanation.

Part 4: Exploration Stage 3 : 10 ‘

Explain that the timeline ends in a highly advanced future and you have the possibility to time travel to the past and do things differently.

Ask the teams of 4 to reflect on possible things they would have done differently in the past. Give them 5’ to come up with changes.

The groups of 4 select a person to take turn to add their suggestions  on the timeline. Make sure the suggestions are added above the timeline, around the time they would have wanted to happen.

Part 5 : Closing Stage : 10’ : Action points

The last part of this retro is where the teams of 4 reflect on what are the things they could change now based on what they would have changed in the past.

Each team receives 3 minutes to reflect on what they would do differently from now on. The same person presents the action points to the other teams.