[This post is part of Corinna’s Guide to Facilitating Retrospectives]
Hi there!
Quick recap: Retrospectives serve a purpose. In the long run, we want to improve and that means trying out things. If all that ever happens is talking and nothing ever changes due to retros, then why do them? Teams quickly learn to resent retros if they never result in change.
Last week we talked about how we can shape action items in a way that increases their chances of getting implemented by the team. This week, it’s about how we can help in the following retrospective.
Story Time! Let me tell you about the team with the best follow-through I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with: Each retro they added all action items and rule changes to a big sheet of flipchart paper. Each item had a “revisit”-date attached to it – the date when the team thought they’d be able to judge the effect (usually 2, 4 or 6 weeks).
At the beginning of each retro we would go down the list of all open items that had reached their revisit date and inspect them. Did the team do it? Did it work as intended? If yes, rule changes were made permanent and actions crossed off. If not, the items were changed or consciously dropped.
They had continuous improvement down to an art. It was a joy to facilitate their retros. They devoted a huge chunk of time to this process – 20-30 minutes out of 60. That sounds like a lot (it is!) but it worked very well for them. By the time they had analyzed the list, they usually had covered a lot of the things that bugged them anyway.
I’ve never again seen such consistent follow-up. That’s why I suggest to add a new short phase in between in between “Set the Stage” and “Gather Data” (from 5 phases of a retrospective) to replicate this success: Bring the list of last retro’s agreements and find out what happened with them – for about 5 minutes.
This accomplishes several things:
- It lets the team know that someone cares about what happens, like an accountability partner. (Whenever I remember to, I’ll also ask during the iteration – genuinely curious, not passive-aggressively!)
- The team and I can spot root causes of low follow-through and work to improve the surrounding conditions
With a mature team, I’ll do this every once in a while. If I think there’s a problematic pattern, I’ll do it more often. I try my damnedest not to be accusing, but if the team consistently does very little of what they agreed to do, that points to an underlying problem. Phase 2 helps us find this out so that we can work on the lack of follow-through.
Take a minute:
How does the team or you keep track of follow-through? Would New Phase 2 makes sense for you?
See you soon,
Corinna
PS: I originally called this new phase “Phase 0” and did it at the very beginning. Other people have independently developed similar concepts (eg Marc Löffler and Judith Andresen) and dubbed it “New Phase 2”. They feel that it’s important to have “Set the Stage” as the very first phase so that participants “arrive”. I’ve come around to their way of thinking. So scratch “Phase 0”, long live “New Phase 2”!
PS: Did you know there's a Retromat eBook Bundle? Ready-made retrospective plans for beginners and all activities from Retromat for experienced facilitators. Check out the Retromat books