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Retromat.org – by Corinna Baldauf
Plan-ID:
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Set the stage

Weather Report (#2)

Participants mark their 'weather' (mood) on a flipchart
Source: Agile Retrospectives
Prepare a flipchart with a drawing of storm, rain, clouds and sunshine. Each participant marks their mood on the sheet.
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Generate insights

Lean Coffee (#51)

Use the Lean Coffee format for a focused discussion of the top topics
Source: Original description and in action
Say how much time you set aside for this phase, then explain the rules of Lean Coffee for retrospectives:
  • Everyone writes down topics they’d like to discuss - 1 topic per sticky
  • Put the stickies up on a whiteboard or flipchart. The person who wrote it describes the topic in 1 or 2 sentences. Group stickies that are about the same topic
  • Everyone dot-votes for the 2 topics they want to discuss
  • Order the stickies according to votes
  • Start with the topic of highest interest
  • Set a timer for 5 minutes. When the timer beeps, everyone gives a quick thumbs up or down. Majority of thumbs up: The topic gets another 5 minutes. Majority of thumbs down: Start the next topic.
Stop when the allotted time is over.
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Generate insights

The Worst We Could Do (#69)

Explore how to ruin the next iteration for sure
Source: Corinna Baldauf
Hand out pens and sticky notes. Ask everyone for ideas on how to turn the next iteration / release into a certain desaster - one idea per note. When everyone's finished writing, hang up all stickies and walk through them. Identify and discuss themes.
In the next phase turn these negative actions into their opposite.
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Decide what to do

Merge (#21)

Condense many possible actions down to just two the team will try
Source: Lydia Grawunder & Sebastian Nachtigall
Hand out index cards and markers. Tell everyone to write down the two actions they want to try next iteration - as concretely as possible (SMART). Then everyone pairs up with their neighbor and both together must merge their actions into a single list with two actions. The pairs form groups of 4. Then 8. Now collect every group's two action items and have a vote on the final two.
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Close the retrospective

Endless Blessings (#101)

Bless the upcoming iteration with all your good wishes
Source: Bernie DeKoven via Diana Larsen
Stand in a circle. Explain that you will collect good wishes for the next iteration, building on each other's blessings. If you do it for the first time, start the activity by giving the first blessing. Then go around the circle to add to your blessing. Skip over people who can't think of anything. When you are losing steam, ask for another blessing and start another round. Continue until no one can think of blessings anymore.

Example:
You start with 'May we finish all stories next iteration'. Your neighbor continues with 'And may they delight our customers'. Their neighbor wishes 'And may we be able to automatically test all new features'. And so on until ideas for additions to this blessing run out.
Then someone else can start a new round, e.g. with 'May we write beautiful code next iteration'.
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Retromat contains 127 activities, allowing for 8349005 combinations (25x30x22x22x23+5) and we are constantly adding more.

Created by Corinna Baldauf

Corinna wished for something like Retromat during her Scrummaster years. Eventually she just built it herself in the hope that it would be useful to others, too. Any questions, suggestions or encouragement? You can email her or follow her on Twitter. If you like Retromat you might also like Corinna's blog and her summaries on Wall-Skills.com.

Co-developed by Timon Fiddike

Timon gives Scrum trainings. He mentors advanced scrum masters and advanced product owners. Human, dad, nerd, contact improv & tango dancer. He has used Retromat since 2013 and started to build new features in 2016. You can email him or follow him on Twitter. Photo © Ina Abraham.