Retromat: Reflection Plan Directory: 1-127-66-124-144

◄

ESVP (#1)

How do participants feel at the retro: Explorer, Shopper, Vacationer, or Prisoner?
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Prepare a flipchart with areas for E, S, V, and P. Explain the concept:

Explorer: Eager to dive in and research what did and didn't work and how to improve.
Shopper: Positive attitude. Happy if one good things comes out.
Vacationer: Reluctant to actively take part but the retro beats the regular work.
Prisoner: Only attend because they (feel they) must.

Take a poll (anonymously on slips of paper). Count out the answers and keep track on the flipchart for all to see. If trust is low, deliberately destroy the votes afterwards to ensure privacy. Ask what people make of the data. If there's a majority of Vacationers or Prisoners consider using the retro to discuss this finding.

►

◄

Gather data

Delay Display (#127)

What's the current delay? And where are we going again?
Source: Christian Schafmeister

Draw a table with 3 columns. Head the first one 'Destination', the second one 'Delay' and the last one 'Announcement'.

Introduce the scenario: 'You are at a train station. Where is your train going? (It can be anything, a fictional or a real place.) How much of a delay does the train currently have? And what is the announcement? Why is there a delay? (This can be a real reason or modeled after the typical announcements.)'

Each team member fills out 3 sticky notes, 1 for each column. Going around the circle, each team member posts their notes and explains briefly, why they're going to destination X and why there's a delay (or not).

Trains and train delays are very familiar in Germany. Depending on your country and culture you might want to pick a different mode of transportation.

►

◄

Generate insights

Brainwriting (#66)

Written brainstorming levels the playing field for introverts
Source: Prof. Bernd Rohrbach

Pose a central question, such as 'What actions should we take in the next iteration to improve?'. Hand out paper and pens. Everybody writes down their ideas. After 3 minutes everyone passes their paper to their neighbour and continues to write on the one they've gotten. As soon as they run out of ideas, they can read the ideas that are already on the paper and extend them. Rules: No negative comments and everyone writes their ideas down only once. (If several people write down the same idea, that's okay.)
Pass the papers every 3 minutes until everyone had every paper. Pass one last time. Now everyone reads their paper and picks the top 3 ideas. Collect all top 3's on a flip chart for the next phase.

►

◄

Decide what to do

Outside In (#124)

Turn blaming others into actions owned by the team
Source: Ralph Miarka and Veronika Kotrba

If your team has a tendency to see obstacles outside of their team and influence and primarily wants others to change, you can try this activity:

Draw a big rectangle on the board and another rectangle inside of it, like a picture frame. Hang all complaints and grievances that surfaced in previous phases into the frame.

Now comes the interesting twist: Explain that if they want anything in the outside frame to change, they will have to do something themselves to affect that change. Ask the team to come up with actions they can do. Put these actions into the inner rectangle (near the outer sticky they are addressing).

►

◄

Close the retrospective

Elevenie (#144)

Write a short poem
Source: Stefanie Dinh

An Elevenie (German 'Elfchen') is a poem with 11 words on five lines – 1, 2, 3, 4 and 1 word per line respectively. Only do this with a team in which people enjoy working with each other. It's a wonderful activity to do with a team that is disbanding at the end of a project as a way to commerate the good times.

Hand out pens and paper and read out the instructions:
'We are going to each write a poem with 5 lines. Each line has a specific number of words. Don't worry, I'll guide you through each line, one by one. Write down 1 word that comes to mind when you think about our team (a feeling, a color, ...).
On the next line, describe this feeling with 2 words.
On the next line, add details with 3 words – What is it like? How does it smell or sound? What would you like to add?
On line 4, write down a sentence with 4 words, starting with 'I'. What do you associate with your feeling.
Take a moment to read your poem thus far. What 1 word comes to mind? This is the final word of your poem on line 5.'

Now you can go around and everybody who wants to, can read out their poem. Bring tissues, it can be quite moving.

►

ESVP (#1)

Delay Display (#127)

Brainwriting (#66)

Outside In (#124)

Elevenie (#144)

(#)

Created by Corinna Baldauf

Co-developed by Timon Fiddike