{"id":387,"date":"2019-07-11T18:34:35","date_gmt":"2019-07-11T16:34:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/?p=387"},"modified":"2020-07-03T10:42:11","modified_gmt":"2020-07-03T08:42:11","slug":"how-can-i-excite-others-for-retrospectives-dont-be-too-elaborate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/how-can-i-excite-others-for-retrospectives-dont-be-too-elaborate\/","title":{"rendered":"“How can I excite others for retrospectives?” \u2013 Don’t be too elaborate"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cI\u2019d like to share the awesomeness of retrospectives. How can I excite others?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the surface, this question is similar to this one about motivation<\/a>. But they are asked in very different moods. People who ask “How can I motivate people” are subdued. They’ve often run a couple of retros that somehow fell short of expectations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People who ask “How can I excite others?” are bouncing on the balls of their feet, eyes sparkling. They haven’t run a retro yet, but they want to hold ALL the retros! They are so excited that they want to wow everyone with how awesome of a first retro they facilitate. They come to me looking for some ultra fancy activity from the Retromat<\/a> treasure trove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And\n I don’t deliver something fancy. Instead I’ve got a word of caution: If\n you want to convince people that retrospectives are a fabulous idea, \nthen don’t make it too fancy. Don’t start with something that’s far \nremoved from people’s normal interactions. It’s likely to confuse or \nmake participants defiant. Depending on the team, appearing as too much \nof a tree hugger hurts your credibility. Let’s ease everyone into it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n my experience a “normal”, well-facilitated retrospective already has a \nhuge effect. You don’t need more than that to get started. If the \nparticipants get real benefits (shared understanding & improvements \nin their work flow), they usually want to do it again. Keep your \nenthusiasm and down the line you get to try funkier activities \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Btw, I totally get the desire to create something elaborate. When I introduce teams to retrospectives in my freelance work I always get the urge to pick special activities. I mean, they are paying me the big bucks. How can I possibly go there with a variation of my default retrospective<\/a>? Well, because it’s the right thing to do: It’ll get them good discussions and actionable action items. It’s easy to understand what’s happening and what to do. It’s versatile and they can repeat something similar without me. And remember: These well-worn tried-and-true activities are new to them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If that hasn’t convinced you, let me share some anecdotal evidence with you:
\n A friend of mine just started at a company where retrospectives have a \nbad rap. He’s a developer, but he pushed for a retrospective in his team\n and facilitated it himself. The team doesn’t have an agile coach and he\n was new so he didn’t have a huge stake in the content, yet. He’s a good\n facilitator but it’s not his main job. This was his first real \nretrospective ever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He took my default retrospective<\/a> and adapted it a bit. The feedback he got was along the lines of “The best retrospective I have ever seen in this company with a wide margin”. Really great for him, really terrible for the company. That’s why I think you don’t need anything fancy to start. Just the basics, well done.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Does that make sense? Have you ever introduced people to retros? How did it go?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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<\/a><\/strong><\/h3>\u00a0

PPS: Have you heard of Wall-Skills.com<\/a>? It’s main idea is to teach people basic concepts when they weren’t looking for something to learn, e.g. about retrospectives<\/a> or the agile mindset<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI\u2019d like to share the awesomeness of retrospectives. How can I excite others?\u201d On the surface, this question is similar to this one about motivation. But they are asked in very different moods. People who ask “How can I motivate people” are subdued. They’ve often run a couple of retros that somehow fell short of … <\/p>\n

Continue reading ““How can I excite others for retrospectives?” \u2013 Don’t be too elaborate”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387"}],"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=387"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":395,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387\/revisions\/395"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}