{"id":1172,"date":"2025-04-01T10:10:38","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T08:10:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/?p=1172"},"modified":"2025-04-01T10:15:27","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T08:15:27","slug":"8-co-located-retros-preparing-the-room-and-materials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/8-co-located-retros-preparing-the-room-and-materials\/","title":{"rendered":"8. Co-located Retros \u2013 Preparing the room and materials"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>[This post is part of <a href=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/corinnas-guide-to-facilitating-retrospectives\/\">Corinna&#8217;s Guide to Facilitating Retrospectives<\/a>]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Welcome back!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Up until Covid, all my retrospectives were co-located. It\u2019s the context in which I learned to facilitate and what informed most of Retromat. Today we will go over the logistics for co-located retros and next week we&#8217;ll look at how remote retrospectives differ.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Holding space \u2013 literally<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One way to describe good facilitation is &#8220;holding space&#8221;. It&#8217;s meant figuratively but if the meeting is co-located then you also need to prepare the real, physical space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Book a suitable room in advance. Get there early to set everything up for the retro. If you&#8217;re new to facilitation, make that at least an hour. This time will get lower as you get familiar with everything. But you&#8217;ll always want to have some time for last minute fixes and fetching missing stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-table is-style-stripes\"><table><tbody><tr><td><strong>Team Room vs Different Room<\/strong><br>I&#8217;ve just now realized that I&#8217;m so used to meeting rooms for retrospectives that I didn&#8217;t even consider using the team&#8217;s room (if they have a shared space). <br>I prefer a separate room to make it easier for the team to get into the retro headspace (&#8220;we&#8217;re doing something different now&#8221;) and so that we won&#8217;t be disturbed. <br>That being said, for some activities it is beneficial to stay in the space the team work in, such as &#8220;<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/en\/?id=139\" target=\"_blank\">Room Service<\/a>&#8221; or when you focus flow on boards. <\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>If the room is booked immediately before your slot, prepare your equipment outside of the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I always use white boards, so I prep:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Board Markers<\/strong> for writing on boards and <strong>felt tip pens<\/strong> (I like Edding 1200 and 1300) to write the notes. I actually draw a line with each pen and sort out the ones that don&#8217;t paint well anymore.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Sticky notes in different sizes<\/strong><strong><br><\/strong>The expensive ones from 3m, cheap ones fall off the board. Actually, my new workplace provides reusable magnetic sticky notes from Bambook and these work pretty well. They definitely don&#8217;t fall off the board \ud83d\ude42<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Since I\u2019ve prepped my activities in advance, I already know what I will draw on the boards, as soon as I can enter the room. Well, if the boards are clean, which they rarely are. So <strong>cleaning the boards, then drawing<\/strong>.<br>I put effort into a lot of things, but physical boards are not one of them, sorry. Mine are very basic, that&#8217;s why I don&#8217;t need much time. That being said, teams usually do appreciate extra art work. (I observed that with other more diligent and\/or artistic facilitators)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>If you use flip charts<\/strong>, your list will look slightly different. Flip chart markers (I&#8217;m with the Neuland truthers), maybe sticky notes and felt tip pens, and you probably draw your charts beforehand, ready to hang up. Oh, something to put paper up with: Magnets, tape, needles, &#8230; Depending on what background you&#8217;re working with.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>(Btw, here are my secret <a href=\"https:\/\/wall-skills.com\/2015\/80-fancier-sketchnotes\/\">tips for more polished flip charts and sketchnotes<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you&#8217;re giving me a choice between co-located and remote retros (and it doesn&#8217;t depend on anything else like travel time, costs, health risks etc.) I&#8217;ll always choose co-located, because it gives me additional tools to use:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Body language<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Someone&#8217;s body language is a valuable (even if sometimes misleading) source of information, not just for me, for everyone in the room! All of this is lost in a video call, and facial expressions are also harder to catch. All the shrugs, frowns, half-snorts, shuffling and turning away that clue you in to ask for clarification. It&#8217;s easier to pick up weird vibes and check in, in person.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Position in the space<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Where and how someone sits influences how much they will take part. I use this to the group&#8217;s advantage. If somebody barely participates I will often try to physically bring them into the fold more: Are they sitting slightly outside the circle or apart from the group? I&#8217;ll invite them in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Depending on the situation, I might talk to them after the retro in preparation of the next one, instead of putting someone on the spot during the retro.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Oh, I haven&#8217;t talked about the <strong>room setup<\/strong> yet!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For bigger teams (7 people or more) I set up the chairs in a flat u-shape around the whiteboards, with me sitting at one end of the u, so that I can easily get to the boards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1000\" height=\"669\" src=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-big-group.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1176\" srcset=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-big-group.jpg 1000w, https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-big-group-300x201.jpg 300w, https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-big-group-768x514.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 706px) 89vw, (max-width: 767px) 82vw, 740px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>In small teams I tend to just have everyone sit around a table. That means that some people have to turn to see the whiteboard. I usually position the board at an angle at one of the corners, with me sitting next to it on one of the long sides, not the head of the table.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1000\" height=\"654\" src=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-small-group.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1177\" srcset=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-small-group.png 1000w, https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-small-group-300x196.png 300w, https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/co-located-room-setups-small-group-768x502.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 706px) 89vw, (max-width: 767px) 82vw, 740px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>My goal with either setup is to increase the likelihood that team members will talk to each other, rather than with me. When I&#8217;m not actively explaining an activity I try to blend into the background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take a minute:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>What room setups have you seen in workshops and meetings? How have they influenced the flow of the event? What would you like to try in your next retro?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Next week we&#8217;re gonna cover remote retrospectives. See you then *waves*<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Corinna<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><h3><strong>PS: If you'd rather read this <a href=\"https:\/\/leanpub.com\/guidetoretrospectives\" target=\"_blank\">Guide as an ebook, click here.<\/a> Or go all in and get it as part of the <a href=\"https:\/\/leanpub.com\/b\/retromat-bundle-agile-retrospectives\" target=\"_blank\">Retromat eBook Bundle<\/a> at a discount. A purchase also supports Retromat as a whole \ud83d\ude42<\/strong><\/h3><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[This post is part of Corinna&#8217;s Guide to Facilitating Retrospectives] Welcome back! Up until Covid, all my retrospectives were co-located. It\u2019s the context in which I learned to facilitate and what informed most of Retromat. Today we will go over the logistics for co-located retros and next week we&#8217;ll look at how remote retrospectives differ. &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/8-co-located-retros-preparing-the-room-and-materials\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;8. Co-located Retros \u2013 Preparing the room and materials&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1172"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1184,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1172\/revisions\/1184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1172"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1172"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1172"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}