Planning your next agile retrospective? Start with a random plan, change it to fit the team's situation, print it and share the URL. Or browse around for new ideas!
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.
Prepare a flip chart with 3 columns titled 'What', 'Who', and 'Due'. Ask one participant after the other, what they want to do to advance the team. Write down the task, agree on a 'done by'-date and let them sign their name. If someone suggests an action for the whole team, the proposer needs to get buy-in (and signatures) from the others.
Prepare 3 flip chart papers titled 'Helped', 'Hindered', and 'Hypothesis' (suggestions for things to try out). Ask participants to help you grow and improve as a facilitator by writing you sticky notes and signing their initials so that you may ask questions later.
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.
