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Ben Linders ConsultingTopconf Linz March 1, 2017 Ben Linders

Spicing up Agile Retrospectives

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Ben Linders Consulting

Key Takeaways

• “Why” and “what” of Retrospectives• Retrospective Exercises and Examples• Facilitating Retrospectives

With agile retrospectives teams drive their own actions! Ben Linders

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Ben Linders Consulting

Agile, Lean, Quality & Continuous Improvement

Trainer / Coach / Adviser / Author / SpeakerRecognized Expert on Agile RetrospectivesCMMI & People-CMM Assessor

Freelance Editor for InfoQ.com

Ben Linders

Co-Author Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives English Dutch French Japanese Spanish Italian Chinese Russian Polish German Greek Turkish Vietnamese Czech

Author: What Drives Quality & Continuous Improvement

eBook: Download from Amazon, InfoQ or LeanpubPrint: Buy on Amazon or other bookstores

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Ben Linders Consulting

State of PracticeAgile Retrospectives

Doing them?

Like doing them?

Valuable?

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Ben Linders Consulting

Agile RetrospectivesAgile practice for teams to reflect on their way of workingand to continuously become better in what they do.

Focus upon

• Teamworking

• Self organizing

What is an Agile Retrospectives

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Ben Linders Consulting

Purpose of Retrospectives

• With team’s authority comes responsibility for WoW

• No “first time right”

• Ok to fail, if you learn from it

• Continuous improvement

Sustainable Improvement through Agile Retrospectives

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Ben Linders Consulting

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Ben Linders Consulting

Retrospectives with Kanban• Fixed cycle / cadence

Every week / 2 weeks, etc• When needed

Impediment raised / Stand upstop-the-lineIssue board

Start from where you are Kaizen, small continuous steps

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Ben Linders Consulting

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.”

Norm Kerth http://www.retrospectives.com/

Create an Open Culturewhere team member Speak Upwith Respect for each otherto Learn and Improve

Prime Directive in 9 Languages Soft Skills Matter

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Ben Linders Consulting

Team DevelopmentExcellent teams:• are self organized & take responsibility,• value collaboration & interaction,• and want learn and improve themselves.

Agile Retrospectives: empower teams help teams to take action enable sustainable improvement

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Ben Linders Consulting

Example: Failed sprint

The Sprint that failed One-Word Exercise:

• Deal with Feelings • Trust & Respect• Empowerment

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Ben Linders Consulting

Example: Not able to improve

Team that wasn’t a team yet 5-Times Why exercise

• Getting to know each other• Collaborate• Skills to Improve

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Ben Linders Consulting

Retrospective Exercises• Asking questions• One-word retrospective• Root Cause Analysis• Asking Why?• Strenghts (Solution Focused)• Perfection game• Action priorities• Retrospective of Retrospectives• Teams with multiple customers

• Remote Teams• Futurespectives• Strengths/Core Qualities• Self-assessment Game• Agile journey• Safety check• Faces Jack Sparrow

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Ben Linders Consulting

Toolbox of Retrospective Exercises

• Teams differ• Needs vary• More value• Keep it fresh

You can plan a retrospective meeting, and think about the exercise you want to use, but be open to change it on the spot whenever needed.

Toolbox of Retrospective Techniques

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Ben Linders Consulting

Capable Retrospective FacilitatorsFacilitated by capable professionals:• Qualified facilitators• Train: Purpose, techniques, skills • Mentoring & coaching • Communities of Practice

Agile Improvement

Effective and Efficient Retrospectives: More Impact Less time

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Ben Linders Consulting

Do and Evaluate Retrospectives

Start with retrospectives in your first iteration Simple technique: asking questions or boat exercise

Evaluate the Retrospective:• Is this useful? • Helps to get a shared understanding?• Do the actions make sense? • Does meeting as a team to reflect feel good? 

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Ben Linders Consulting

Vital Few Actions• Small Actions • Frequent Change• Focus on Value• Stop Starting,

Start Stopping• Kanban

Short Cycled Improvement Vital Few Actions

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Ben Linders Consulting

Designing your Retrospective

amazon.com/dp/B00SWJO1DI benlinders.com/exercises/

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Ben Linders Consulting

Spicing Up your RetrospectiveValuable Agile Retrospectives:• Well Facilitated• Effective Exercises• Vital Few Actions

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Ben Linders Consulting

Questions?Questions?

Ben LindersIndependent Consultant Agile, Lean,Quality & Continuous Improvement

info@BenLinders.cominfo@BenLinders.com @BenLinders www.linkedin.com/in/benlinderswww.linkedin.com/in/benlinders www.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvieswww.facebook.com/BenLindersAdvies www.benlinders.comwww.benlinders.com

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Ben Linders Consulting

Spicing up RetrospectivesFull Day WorkshopsWhy and HowBusiness BenefitsFacilitation SkillsExercises

Workshop Agile RetrospectivesSpice up your Agile Retrospectives

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Ben Linders Consulting

Getting More out of Agile & Lean Practices for teams and stakeholders to develop the right products,

deliver faster, increase quality, and create happy high performing teams.

Full Day Workshops:Deploying Agile practices effectively Improve CollaborationTips & Trick for Agile & Lean Improve Continuously

Increase your organization's agility!

BenLinders.com/agilelean

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Ben Linders Consulting

Retrospectives BookGetting Value out of Agile RetrospectivesBy Luis Gonçalves & Ben Linders

Download from InfoQ or LeanpubBuy on Amazon or Lulu

amazon.com/dp/B00SWJO1DIleanpub.com/gettingvalueoutofagileretrospectives

Mailinglist: eepurl.com/Mem7H

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Ben Linders Consulting

Continuous Improvement

Become aware of importance of continuous improvement,

Explore how it’s engrained in agile software development

Suggestions that you can use in your daily work to improve continuously

Increase your organization's agility!

Leanpub.com/continuousimprovement

“Continuous Improvement is the act of continuously doing whatever helps to become better and thus more valuable”

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Ben Linders Consulting

Retrospectives Book BundleSix successful retrospectives books• Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives• Fun Retrospectives• Fifty Quick Ideas to Improve Your Retrospectives• The Retrospective Handbook• Retrospectives for Organizational Change• The Retrospectives Kickstarter

These books will make your agile retrospectives rock!Teams will love to do them :-).

leanpub.com/b/agileretrospectivesDiscounted price: $30,48 (excl. VAT)

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Ben Linders Consulting

Assessing your AgilityOver 40 tools:• Self-Assessment checklists• Readyness checks• Maturity assessments• Agile health checks• Measurements• And much more! Agile Self-Assessments

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Ben Linders Consulting

Why Retrospectives?To help teams to solve problems and improve themselves!

• Becoming Agile and Lean• Make existing processes more Agile• Increase Value of Agile• Less resistance to Change