[This post is part of Corinna’s Guide to Facilitating Retrospectives]
Hello friend!
The purpose of Retromat is to help you plan a retrospective that fits your team’s situation. It’s heavily implied that you will vary the activities: this iteration’s retro will have different activities from the next one and the one after that.
Why, though? Why not always run the same one? After all, I shared the best retrospective for beginners with you. It’s a great multi-purpose retro – why not stick to it?
First off, you can absolutely do that. There’s no law against always using the same format, especially to become comfortable before moving on. There are teams that hands-down prefer that. Fewer moving parts, everyone knows what’s coming – it does reduce friction while running the retro.
Having said that, sometimes friction is what you want. Well, not friction per se, but making people stop in their tracks and think about things in a new way. If you keep asking the same questions, you will keep getting the same answers.
Different activities ask different questions and sometimes even a slight variation can get participants to think about something differently. Switching the point of view or using metaphors can open up the possibility for profound change. Carefully picked activities shine a light on issues that the team was unaware of or shied away from addressing on their own.
Plus, for every team out there that likes to keep things the same, there is also one that gets bored by repetition and asks for a crazy new activity each time. Which kind of team are you facilitating for?
So far, I haven’t really had a team that wanted to always follow the same plan. (Probably because the inner loop stays the same 99% of the time. My retros look like more variation than they actually are in terms of new actions and behaviors I’m asking of the participants during the retro).
If I did have a team that wanted to stick to the same plan, I would fulfill their request as long as they still get value out of their retrospectives. Once that is not the case anymore, I’d announce a change of plans to avoid stagnation.
I’d also negotiate a “for every X retros that we follow your wish, I get 1, where I pick” type of deal so that I don’t die of boredom. But largely, I do see myself as providing a service and will respect the team’s wishes as long as they still address problems and the team improves.
Take a minute:
What does your team prefer, variety or the familiar?
Next week, we’ll look at Tuckman’s stages and how they can help you tailor retros for your team,
all the best,
Corinna
PS: It is actually a good idea to have a “go-to retro plan”. If I’m asked to facilitate on short notice (usually for a team I don’t know that well), I fall back on two plans that I can facilitate at the drop of a hat.
PS: If you'd rather read this Guide as an ebook, click here. Or go all in and get it as part of the Retromat eBook Bundle at a discount. A purchase also supports Retromat as a whole 🙂