The Retrospective HandbookA guide for agile teams

Patrick Kua

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This version was published on 2013-01-25

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©2012 - 2013 Patrick Kua

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Contents

About this Sample Book i

Foreword by Diana Larsen ii

Preface v

Introduction vii

1 Retrospective Fundamentals 11.1 A Short History of Retrospectives . . . . . 11.2 The Key Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.3 A Simple Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . 31.4 Where to Find Activities . . . . . . . . . . 31.5 The Importance of the Prime Directive . . 41.6 The Right Context for Retrospectives . . . 41.7 Complementary Improvement Practices . 4

2 Preparing for Retrospectives 52.1 Set Aside Time to Prepare . . . . . . . . . 52.2 Find an Appropriate Space . . . . . . . . . 62.3 Choose the Right Materials . . . . . . . . 62.4 Prepare the Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62.5 Right People, Right Place, Right Time . . . 72.6 A Preparation Checklist . . . . . . . . . . 7

3 Facilitating Retrospectives 83.1 Independent or Non-Independent . . . . . 83.2 Conflict of Interest . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8

CONTENTS

3.3 Be Decisive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93.4 Develop Your Facilitation Skills . . . . . . 93.5 Form Effective Actions . . . . . . . . . . . 93.6 Spread the Retrospective Word . . . . . . 9

About this Sample BookThis sample book contains the full front matter and a fewsample sections from the first three chapters in the fulledition of the book. The Table of Contents contains onlythe sections added to this book. The full Table of Contentslisting is available on The Retrospective Handbook’s homepage.

The sections included in this preview give you a feel forwhat the rest of the book is like. I hope you find it enticingenough to try out the full version which contains over 120pages of content.

i

Foreword by DianaLarsen

Over fifteen years ago, Norm Kerth (author of ProjectRetrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews) asked meto lead a retrospective for a team. He was acting as interimmanager for the project which made him ineligible forthe role of neutral facilitator - he knew he had opinionsabout the project and wanted to contribute them. We’dmet through a mutual friend, and he had learned that I hadexperience with meeting facilitation and helping technicalteams improve their work processes. I felt honoured thathe asked me and curious about his format. He gave mean unpublished manuscript and said, “Read this…you’llbe fine.” I read it, we designed a three-day meeting, andthe resulting retrospective went so well that he included ablow-by-blow description of it in his book.

That was my first introduction to project team retro-spectives. It changed the course of my career and my life.Over the last fifteen years, I’ve collaborated with Norm,Esther Derby, Deborah Lavell, Gerhard Ackermann, LindaRising, Boris Gloger, Rachel Davies, Charlotte Malther,Ainsley Nies, Josef Scherer, George Dinwiddie, and a hostof other excellent retrospective leaders to establish theannual international “Retrospective Facilitators Gathering”and co-authored (with Esther) Agile Retrospectives: Mak-ing Good Teams Great. The movement to adopt Agileapproaches to software development gave teams the oppor-tunity to continuously improve their methods, practices,

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Foreword by Diana Larsen iii

processes, and teamwork throughout the project, not justat the end. Esther and I offered workshops in leadingAgile retrospectives at the end of iterations and releases toscores of people worldwide, and we weren’t the only ones.Retrospectives became an accepted part of the cannon ofAgile practices.

Getting to know Patrick Kua was one of the delights as-sociated with the 2007 Retrospective Facilitators Gathering(RFG, for short) in Phoenix, Arizona. Pat brought a highdegree of creative energy and enthusiasm to retrospectiveleadership. I enjoyed hearing about his experiences, hisdesigns, and his innovations for the practice. I began fol-lowing his blog posts and gained an even greater respect forhis skills as an Agile coach. We looked for opportunities tocollaborate on conference sessions. Over time, he became aleading thinker and writer about designing and facilitatinghighly effective retrospectives.

In 2006, when Esther and I published Agile Retro-spectives, we used the term “retrospective leader” ratherthan “facilitator” to describe the role. At the time, ingeneral, development team members, team leads, player-coaches, and scrum masters held low opinions of “touchy-feely,” “group process,” and words like “fluffy bunny” and“facilitator” that accompanied them. Since then, the role ofameeting facilitator and the skill of facilitation have gainedrecognition as an essential skill for team leaders and teammembers.

In this book, Pat underscores that awareness. Heincludes many aspects of retrospective facilitation that

Foreword by Diana Larsen iv

Esther and I left out, delving deeply into preparation andfollow through, various types of retrospectives (he callsthem flavours), common retrospective smells (to expandinto another sense), retrospectives with distributed teams,and how to keep them fresh. He also provides pointers togroup process activities and resources for improving one’sskills as a facilitator. It is truly a soup-to-nuts compendiumof the wisdom he’s gained from his experiences.

As Norm introducedme to the format of retrospectives,let Pat introduce you to his perceptive, discriminating, andingenious take on facilitating retrospectives. And I hope tomeet you at an RFG someday!

- Diana Larsenpartner, FutureWorks Consulting LLCco-author, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Greatco-author, Liftoff: Launching Agile Teams & Projects

PrefaceI have fond memories of my first ‘agile team’ experi-ence, mostly Extreme Programming (XP)-inspired withfortnightly planning sessions, with frequent releases andretrospectives at the end of each iteration. We would stopfor an hour each fortnight, celebrate positive aspects, andexplore any issues we had at all levels: technical, team andenvironment. My teammates and I found that we becamehighly engaged because we could directly influence theway we worked and we could continue experimenting andfine-tuning our work methods as circumstances changed.

We released software into production every single fort-night. I felt so much more productive than I had in aprevious job, where I had worked on a large, distributedproject for a huge coproration, and had rarely heard peopletalk about change or improvement. The contrast betweenthese experiences helped me to see how retrospectivescreate ‘safe spaces’ and inspired me to want to run andfacilitate retrospectives.

In London I met Tim MacKinnon, another XP devel-oper who was passionate about the retrospective practice.On one occasion, because he had no time and knew ofmy passion for retrospectives, he asked me to facilitate aproject retrospective.

I was extremely nervous about being an ‘official’ fa-cilitator for the first time and I searched desperately for abook to tell me how I could run it successfully. I wantedadvice about potential traps and how best to prepare for theupcoming retrospective.

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Preface vi

Unfortunately, I found nothing at the time and wasthankful when the retrospective went successfully. Par-ticipants had raised some tough problems but people leftwith closure on some issues, a better shared understandingof why certain events had unfolded, and lessons to sharewith other project teams.

Even though this first retrospective had gone well, I feltthat this was largely down to good fortune and still wishedthat I had had a resource offering practical advice on howto prepare for a variety of retrospective situations.

Hence this book. I hope it serves you well, as theresource I wish had existed when I first started facilitatingretrospectives.

IntroductionWith more organisations choosing agile methodologies todeliver software, more teams are picking up the practice ofagile retrospectives. You may be working on one of theseteams already and regularly use agile retrospectives to seekcontinuous improvement; if not, your team may find theagile retrospective practice beneficial to your work.

The Retrospective Handbook is intended as an aid torunning more effective retrospectives and to complementexisting books on retrospectives. It is important to use agood variety of activities to make an engaging retrospec-tive, but this handbook intentionally focuses less on listingactivities in favour of addressing the practical challengesyou are likely to encounter when running retrospectives.

The contents of this book reflect advice I have beenasked for time and again by people interested in the retro-spective practice. Some questions came from newcomers tothe agile retrospective practice, who had problems makingretrospectives useful, while other questions came from ret-rospective facilitators keen to hear alternative approachesto common problems. The Retrospective Handbook alsocontains advice on working with seasoned agile teams, andexplores ways of changing the retrospective practice to beeven more engaging and insightful.

Some of the questions I answer in this book include:

• What is the Retrospective Prime Directive and whyshould I care?

• How can I improve how I facilitate retrospectives?

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Introduction viii

• How important is an independent facilitator?• How do I run a distributed retrospective effectively?• What different types of retrospectives do people run?• What can I do to keep retrospectives fresh?• How do we make sure that we get results from theretrospective?

The answers to these questions and many more aredrawn not only from my own experience with the ret-rospective practice, helping clients and teams overcomefrustrations and puzzles they faced, but also from nu-merous other retrospective facilitators who have passedon their insights and wisdom. I hope The RetrospectiveHandbook helps you to increase the effectiveness of yourretrospectives and enables your team to go from strengthto strength for years to come.

1 RetrospectiveFundamentals

1.1 A Short History ofRetrospectives

Norm Kerth first published his ideas on the retrospec-tive practice in his 2001 book, Project Retrospectives: AHandbook for Team Reviews [KERTH]. The book describesretrospectives as:

A ritual gathering of a community at the endof the project to review the events and learnfrom the experience. No one knows the wholestory of a project. Each person has a pieceof the story. The retrospective ritual is thecollective telling of the story and mining theexperience for wisdom.

Kerth’s book describes how retrospectives differ from‘Project Post Mortems’ and ‘Lessons Learnt’ sessions witha particular focus on taking positive action and acting as acatalyst for change. At around the same time, a number ofauthors published the Agile Manifesto¹ as a way of rallyingpeople to adopt lightweight methodologies. These newagile methodologies and approaches made learning andcommunication primary concerns. One of the principles

¹http://agilemanifesto.org/

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Retrospective Fundamentals 2

of the Agile Manifesto aligns very well with the practice ofretrospectives:

At regular intervals, the team reflects on howto become more effective, then tunes and ad-justs its behaviour accordingly.

The agile community started to embrace the key ideaof the retrospective practice. Agile teams saw that theydidn’t need to wait until the end of a project to run aretrospective and began running them at the end of eachiteration. Instead of running retrospectives every three, sixor twelve months, teams ran retrospectives as frequentlyas every week, or at least every month. By steppingback and reflecting on current situations, teams realisedvalue immediately by applying recommendations whilstthe project was in flight, rather than at the end.

The following table highlights practices and principlesthat align well with the spirit of retrospectives.

Methodology Practice or Principle

Extreme Programming Fix XP When It BreaksScrum Sprint Retrospective practiceCrystal Clear Reflective ImprovementAdaptive SW Development LearnLean SW Development Amplify LearningKanban Improve CollaborativelyDSDM Atern Timebox Close-OutRUP Adapt the Process

Retrospective Fundamentals 3

Reflecting over a shorter period of time, one to fourweeks instead of three to twelve months changed thenature of these meetings. Kerth wrote about taking severaldays to fully reflect over a project, but looking back over asignificantly shorter period, at the end of an iteration ratherthan an entire project, reduces the time needed to conductan agile retrospective. Instead of project retrospectiveslasting several days, agile retrospectives only take an houror two to run. In response to these shorter meetings,sometimes called ‘Heartbeat Retrospectives’, Esther Derbyand Diana Larsen published theAgile Retrospectives: Mak-ing Good Teams Great [DERBY]. This book provided asignificant contribution to the retrospective community,providing a more relevant framework for agile teams andan even wider set of exercises for people to try out.

1.2 The Key QuestionsMore on this in the full version.

1.3 A Simple FrameworkMore on this in the full version.

1.4 Where to Find ActivitiesMore on this in the full version.

Retrospective Fundamentals 4

1.5 The Importance of the PrimeDirective

More on this in the full version.

1.6 The Right Context forRetrospectives

More on this in the full version.

1.7 Complementary ImprovementPractices

More on this in the full version.

2 Preparing forRetrospectives

An agile retrospective is a meeting like any other. Eventhough it is a relatively short meeting, usually lastingabout an hour, I find that most facilitators do not set asidesufficient time from their other tasks to properly preparefor a retrospective. A lack of preparation often results in adisproportionate amount of crucial retrospective time be-ing spent on organising materials, the room, and decidingwhat activities to run rather than information gatheringand getting to the crux of the matter.

2.1 Set Aside Time to PrepareThe effective facilitator sets aside two blocks of preparationtime. The first is to decide the purpose of the retrospective;the second is to design an agenda around it, complete witha schedule of anticipated timings.

The purpose of the retrospective is to celebrate successand look for improvements. For a heartbeat retrospective,it makes sense to focus on the events since the last retro-spective; normally one or two weeks’ time. You may evenchoose to run a ‘Focused Topic Retrospective.’ For example,one team I worked on ran two separate retrospectives. Oneweek the retrospective focused on team issues, such as theprocess of how stories flowed and the interactions betweenteam members. The following week’s retrospective had atechnical theme, bringing in just the developers to discuss

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Preparing for Retrospectives 6

technical issues surrounding the code, design and buildprocess. Focused Topic Retrospectives are useful but I don’trecommend teams running them continually.

An agenda helps a retrospective run more smoothly.An agenda includes the activities you plan to run andtheir sequence. Draw the agenda on a flip chart andmake it visible. Making the agenda visible throughoutthe retrospective is useful to keep the retrospective fo-cused. Consider how long each activity takes to run andallow enough time for group discussion as well as timefor transition between activities. Ensure the accumulatedtime fits into the overall time you planned for the entireretrospective. Avoid rushing people through conversationsor cutting short a retrospective.

2.2 Find an Appropriate SpaceMore on this in the full version.

2.3 Choose the Right MaterialsMore on this in the full version.

2.4 Prepare the SpaceMore on this in the full version.

Preparing for Retrospectives 7

2.5 Right People, Right Place, RightTime

More on this in the full version.

2.6 A Preparation ChecklistMore on this in the full version.

3 FacilitatingRetrospectives

A direct contributor to the effectiveness of a retrospectiveis the quality of the facilitator and how they facilitate theretrospective. In this chapter, I will deal with a number ofa issues particularly relevant to facilitating retrospectivesover other meetings. If you are unfamiliar or uneasy withfacilitating, the next chapter covers advice to help you.

3.1 Independent orNon-Independent

In an ideal world, all team retrospectives would havean independent facilitator to run their retrospectives. Afacilitator outside of the team maintains neutrality andprevents discussions and outcomes being unintentionallybiased. In reality, finding an external facilitator for agileretrospectives is difficult due to cost or time constraints.Teams may also find they are the only people in theirorganisation that run retrospectives, making it impossibleto find an experienced retrospective facilitator from any-where else within their organisation.

More on this in the full version.

3.2 Conflict of InterestMore on this in the full version.

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Facilitating Retrospectives 9

3.3 Be DecisiveMore on this in the full version.

3.4 Develop Your Facilitation SkillsMore on this in the full version.

3.5 Form Effective ActionsMore on this in the full version.

3.6 Spread the Retrospective WordMore on this in the full version.