Your Favorite Agile Retrospectives. POST THEM HERE AND LETS BUILD THE ULTIMATE LIST by Troy Lightfoot


#53

Just found a really cool one today from @scrumandginger on Twitter. http://oikosofy.com/speed-dating-agile-retrospective-style/ Is the original full post. Haven’t tried it yet but I plan on it.

Premise: by Jessica Long

Around the time that the Agile Manifesto materialized, another fast paced and sleeker model of partnering and collaboration was popularizing – speed dating! It only seemed fitting that the two could somehow co-exist, even if just in a playful and platonic manner. This is a fun twist for teammates that have established a good connection but might need a break from the more traditional retrospective ceremony.

What you can expect to get out of this exercise

While you may encounter a lot of baffled looks upon introducing this exercise, you can rest assured that the end result will liven the room and afford heightened relationships. The activity is unique in the sense that teammates will have an opportunity to discuss their thoughts one on one.

For how to do it check out the link above.


#54

Modern agile Retro:

Instructions:

Use the 4 sections of the Modern Agile Values
Review the values with your team
Ask the team to identify things that happened during the sprint that met the modern agile values and post it in the correlating section.
Ask the team to identify things that happened that didn’t meet the modern agile values or how we could improve at these values and post in the correlating section.
Make sure to remind the team to not point fingers and that we fail and succeed as these values as a team.
Record action items and make a plan.


#55

Love this, @troy… Cockburn’s Heart of Agile HoA could be another “4-box” model to experiment with.


#56

Awesome suggestion @troy, definitely going to give that one a try in the future and then perhaps I’ll try experimenting the Heart of Agile one as well @thostaylor! Thank you to you both for sharing.


#57

A new one i’m testing out on Monday:


#58

Came up with a new retro format tonight. Haven’t seen it anywhere so thought I’d post the idea here.


#59

Today a SM and I facilitated the Speed Dating retro. I have to say it was REALLY awesome. It caused an hour of conversation after with some great action items and most importantly the team dynamics were noticeably improved by the end.


#60

Speed dating retro is a fun one! I had to the pleasure of working with Jess. When I first herd the concept I was like WTF! Then I tried it and was like Holy Sh!t it works.


#61

I like this, how well does this work with a mixed gender team? If there is a single female on the team could this feel “unsafe”? What are the risks with speed dating?


#62

It’s just having open discussions 1:1 with everyone on the team! The title is just for run really I think because its in the “style” of how speed dating works.


#63

@bradstokes I have run this retro with mixed populations and India… When introducing it I refer to the style of speed dating and not to get hung up on the title. I had to tell a story about speed dating when I did it in India… was a bit lost on them.

I have a funny story about introducing to a team in Pittsburgh… but that is not a safe one to type out here! It has to do with me growing up near West Virginia.

So you can piece that together on your own. @JayHorsecow


#64

I love the idea, I can just see where it might be quite scary and (in a completely unintentional way) very confronting for some personalities. I was more curious than anything. I would 100% have to change the title, but I like it.


#65

One of the best ways to create dynamics in a team. I experienced this to be very well perceived by everyone so far. A must have in every new team!


#66

Glad you like it @hdietrich !


#67

A colleague of mine was just pointing me to the Japanese concept call IKIGAI, which means “a reason for being”.

While this is meant to be tailored for personal development, I feel like you could apply it to other contexts, like teams or even organizations as well.

https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/life/relationships/2016/09/06/why-north-americans-should-consider-dumping-age-old-retirement-pasricha/li-pasricha-pilot2.jpg

“What the world needs” and “What you are being paid for” becomes your product…


#68

Wow that’s very interesting! Going to think about how a retro format might work with this. If I come up with something good i’ll post. Thank you


#69

Catching up with posts on Agile Uprising I just discovered this one. There are lot of great exercises already, cool!

I’m listing exercises in my retrospective toolbox at https://www.benlinders.com/exercises/.
One of my favorites is the Backpacking Retrospective https://www.benlinders.com/2017/agile-journey-backpacking-retrospective-exercise/


#70

Bumping for the folks in the agile facilitator class


#71

Blog post on Scatterspoke about the integral retro: https://blog.scatterspoke.com/the-theory-of-everything/


#72

I’ve used the Modern Agile retro. We ended up spending the next two retros talking only about Psychological Safety. Within a few months of working on that, they were then able to talk about Deliver Value Continuously.

My go to is the Keep Doing | Start Doing | Stop Doing
I especially use this for teams that I’m just starting to work with.

Finally, I find once I get to know a team, I don’t use these games as much. We usually just start chatting as a team about things we observed. I like this approach much better as it feels more organic to me.