{"id":697,"date":"2021-07-18T23:10:45","date_gmt":"2021-07-18T21:10:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/?p=697"},"modified":"2021-10-12T10:40:03","modified_gmt":"2021-10-12T08:40:03","slug":"whats-a-good-action-item","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/whats-a-good-action-item\/","title":{"rendered":"What&#8217;s a good action item?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>9 points that make follow-through more likely<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>tl;dr<\/strong> Small, concrete, team has control over it, clear first step, responsible person, follow-up date, success criteria; there are only a few AIs, visualize<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>Retrospectives are only meaningful if they result in change. Sometimes this change is sparked just by everyone reaching a better understanding of everyone else\u2019s perspective. More often we reach change through experiments, i. e. by trying something new for a set period of time. Obviously, you would like your experiments to improve things, but they won\u2019t always. You have to try out many things to find the ones that are an improvement and discard the rest. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Experiments come in two flavors:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Action Items (AIs) \u2013 concrete todos; usually one-time-tasks\u2028Examples: \u201cInvite the devops team to our refinement meeting\u201d<\/li><li>Rule changes \u2013 how the team handles their interactions, routines, rituals or events; usually on-going and repeating\u2028Examples: <ul><li>\u201ceverybody will answer these 3 questions in the daily standup\u201d, <\/li><li>\u201cwe will groom upcoming stories every Wed 3pm\u201d, <\/li><li>\u201cwe will prepare the product demo the day before the review\u201d<\/li><\/ul><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m sloppy and use \u201caction items\u201d to mean both types \u2013 yes, also in this post. My recommendations apply to both types.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Okay, so we\u2019re in a retrospective and try to come up with good experiments to try out. But what is a \u201cgood\u201d action item? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For me, a good action item is something that has a high chance of actually being implemented by the team. You don\u2019t get brownie points for coming up with ten AIs. You get points for those two AIs that you actually carry out and observe the results of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Great. And what exactly increases the chances of follow-through for an AI? Glad you\u2019re asking! <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Small<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Aim for small experiments. Go for the smallest change that could possibly make a difference. Small changes are easier to agree on. They have a higher chance of actually being implemented, because they are not such a big effort. If an experiment works: Great! If it doesn\u2019t you haven\u2019t invested much and can try something else. Rinse and repeat for continuous improvement. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<!--more-->\n\n\n\n<p>Don\u2019t underestimate the power of baby steps! Small changes quickly add up to big improvements. It\u2019s like compound interest. Additionally, people experience that change is possible and gain momentum. Change is like a muscle: It gets easier with practise. Eventually big changes also become possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Concrete<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Let\u2019s assume, the team has a high-level goal such as \u201cWe want fewer failed stories\u201d. There are many different  ways to get closer to this goal. The team decides to go with limiting work in progress, e. g. \u201cWork on fewer stories in parallel.\u201d I would not be happy with this. How few is \u201cfewer\u201d? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>How about:  \u201cWe\u2019ll work at most on 2 stories simultaneously\u201d. Better. It\u2019s EASY TO CHECK whether or not the team fulfills this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">In Control of the Team<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Now it\u2019s time to check if the goal and their strategy to reach the goal is within their control. In any given system there are<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>parts that the team Controls<\/li><li>parts that the team can Influence and <\/li><li>parts that they can\u2019t change. But they can Adapt to deal with them better<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Make sure that the goal and strategy reflect where the teams stands regarding \u201cCIA\u201d. It\u2019s okay to pick a goal that they can only influence as long as their plan is about who and how to influence. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>When you\u2019re clear on that, ask them for the first step.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">First Step<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>People often lose momentum, when they don\u2019t know exactly how to start. Aim for a concrete change in behavior \u2013 including events that will trigger the behavior such as \u201cDuring our daily standup, we\u2019ll make sure that we work at most on 2 stories at the same time\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Owner aka Responsible Person<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Who is going to take care of this AI? Either by doing it themselves, by finding other people to implement it or by reminding people. For our example this could be: \u201cTimm will add the WIP-check to our standup-checklist\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If there are no volunteers for an action item, then it is obviously not important enough to the team (right now) and is discarded. Being explicit about not having the capacity or desire to do something is important information. Know thy(team)self \ud83d\ude09 <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If nobody voluntunteers, \u201cWhat would have to change so that you would volunteer?\u201d is an interesting follow-up question. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Review date<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>For todos, this is straightforward, until when will it be done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rule changes often need a longer period of time to see them in action, before you can review them. So how long will the team try a new rule? When the trial period is up, the team review the rule to see if it solved their problem. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Metric<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>And how do they know that they solved the problem or at least improved? What are their success criteria? \u201cGut feeling\u201d is an okay metric in my book as long as the team is explicit about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So far, all the points were for a single AIs. The next one applies to the set of AIs that come out of a retro:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">One of Few<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>I once heard someone boast that they got 17 AIs out of their last retro. They thought that that wos a good thing. To me, it\u2019s not. There\u2019s a proverb \u201cThose who hunt two rabbits will catch neither\u201d. If you have too many goals you will reach fewer of them than if you had a small number to begin with and are able to focus. Out of a 60-90 minute retrospective we will typically get 2-3 action items. Anything more than 5 would make me very skeptical. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Last but not least: <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Visual Reminder<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Find a way to keep the experiments on everyone\u2019s minds. Some ideas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>Big AIs can become stories in the Sprint backlog<\/li><li>Visualize 1-time-todos on the team board<\/li><li>Have a running list of ongoing experiments<\/li><li>Maintain a \u201cWorking Agreement\u201d to list all current team rules<\/li><li>Calendar reminders<\/li><li>Added to existing checklists<\/li><li>\u2026<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Keep AIs in (the vicinity) of \/ on other boards and (digital) documents that the team use on a daily bases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Summary &amp; Mnemonic<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>It feels like I\u2019ve got a prime opportunity to coin a mnemonic here. Like \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/xp123.com\/articles\/invest-in-good-stories-and-smart-tasks\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"INVEST in Good Stories (opens in a new tab)\">INVEST in Good Stories<\/a>\u201d this could be \u201cGreat Action Items are \u2026\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>SCIFORMOV<\/strong>? &#8211; Small, Concrete, In Control of Team, First Step, Owner, Review Date, Metric, One of few, Visual Reminder<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I\u2019m not impressed. What does SCIFORMOV even mean? And yes, I\u2019ve played around with alternative names for the various criteria. See the \u201ctl;dr\u201d to see the first way I phrased them \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What if I change around the order of the letters? I don\u2019t want to change the order in the article, because it reflects the chronological order in which you address these when writing down an AI during a retro. But I guess I can ignore the order for the sake of a mnemonic. So, here we go. I give you\u2026 Drum roll please:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">MOSCOV FIR!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Forgive me, it\u2019s late and I think I\u2019m hilarious \ud83d\ude09 And yes, I realize that\u2019s not how you spell \u201cMoscow\u201d. Anyway, great* action items are MOSCOV FIR. You\u2019ve heard it here first. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>* \u201cGreat\u201d as in \u201chave a high chance of being implemented\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And for full disclosure: I have no idea what the average follow-up on AIs is. For my teams it\u2019s between 60-80% of the action items. Dropped action items often &#8220;belong&#8221; to problems that sorted themselves out in other ways. So I\u2019m not aiming for 100% follow-through. I think 80% would be cool. But even at 60-80% the teams are happy and improving. So there\u2019s that. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What the average follow-through in your teams? Are you happy with that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><h3><strong>PS: Did you know there's a Retromat eBook Bundle? Ready-made retrospective plans for beginners and all activities from Retromat for experienced facilitators. <a href=\"https:\/\/leanpub.com\/b\/retromat-bundle-agile-retrospectives\">Check out the Retromat books<\/a><\/strong><\/h3><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>9 points that make follow-through more likely tl;dr Small, concrete, team has control over it, clear first step, responsible person, follow-up date, success criteria; there are only a few AIs, visualize Retrospectives are only meaningful if they result in change. Sometimes this change is sparked just by everyone reaching a better understanding of everyone else\u2019s &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/whats-a-good-action-item\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;What&#8217;s a good action item?&#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":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697"}],"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=697"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":717,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697\/revisions\/717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/retromat.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}