Retromat: Plan Your Lean Retro Ceremony: 3-133-7-39-60

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Set the stage

Check In - Quick Question (#3)

Ask one question that each participant answers in turn
Source: Agile Retrospectives

In round-robin each participant answers the same question (unless they say 'I pass'). Sample questions:

In one word - What do you need from this retrospective?
When someone answers something that alerts you such as "help" or "protection", you have to react to that e. g. with "Is there something we can do right now to help?" oder "What kind of protection?"
What's something that caused problems last iteration?
If you could change one thing about the last iteration what would it be?

Avoid evaluating comments such as 'Great'. 'Thanks' is okay.

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Gather data

Tell me something I don’t know (#133)

Reveal everyone's hidden knowledge with a game show
Source: Adapted by Kai Alexander Lohr

Instruct participants as follows: ‘There’s a game show called ‘Tell me something I don’t know’. In it a guest states a fact, poses a related question and then the hosts ask questions in order to guess the right answers.

Here’s an example: ‘In the US you always sing along to the national anthem. In Spain no one does. Can you guess why?’ The hosts ask questions such as ‘Does it have to do with the Franco era?’, ‘Are the lyrics in a foreign language e.g. Latin?’ etc. They either guess the answer or the guest reveals it (‘The Spanish anthem doesn’t have any lyrics’).

We’re going to play this game now. Each of you will be the guest once with all the others asking questions. Reflect on the past iteration. Use the next 5 minutes to think of a fact and question.’

The fact has to fulfill 3 criteria. Write them down on a board or reveal a pre-written flipchart:

It must be something that only you know and most other team members don’t know (or are unaware of)
It must be worth knowing
It must be actionable, i. e. have the potential to spark anything along the lines of "Let's do more/less of this.", "Watch out this doesn't happen to you.", "That was awesome. Do try it yourself.", ...

Let them write down their fact on an index card. When everyone is ready, ask the first participant to hang up their index card on the board and present their fact and question to the audience. (People who feel uncomfortable with the game flair don’t have to ask a question. They can also just tell the story around their fact without questions from the ‘audience’.) The audience asks questions to guess the answer. Short discussions are okay. The Scrum Master may also ask questions and gently steer the conversation towards possible actions. Document any actions identified during the discussion on the board. Then move on to the next participant. Use about 5 minutes per participant.

Once all the facts have been presented, the team dot-votes which fact fulfilled the 3 criteria best. The winner receives a framed “Certificate of impressive knowledge”. It documents that “$name has impressed $team with their impressive knowledge”.

The facts and actions can be input for "Generate insight" or use the actions for "Decide what to do”.

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Gather data

Mad Sad Glad (#7)

Collect events when team members felt mad, sad, or glad and find the sources
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Put up three posters labeled 'mad', 'sad', and 'glad' (or >:(, :(, :) alternatively). Team members write down one event per color coded card, when they've felt that way. When the time is up have everyone post their cards to the appropriate posters. Cluster the cards on each poster. Ask the group for cluster names.
Debrief by asking:

What's standing out? What's unexpected?
What was difficult about this task? What was fun?
What patterns do you see? What do they mean for you as a team?
Suggestions on how to continue?

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Decide what to do

Dot Voting - Worked well, Do differently (#39)

Brainstorm what worked well & what to do differently and pick the top initiatives
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Head 2 flip charts with 'Worked well' and 'Do differently next time' respectively. Ask your participants to write concrete proposals for each category - 1 idea per index card. Let them write in silence for a few minutes. Let everyone read out their notes and post them to the appropriate category. Lead a short discussion on what the top 20% beneficial ideas are. Vote on it by distributing dots or X's with a marker, e.g. 1, 2, and 3 dots for each person to distribute. The top 2 or 3 become your action items.

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Close the retrospective

AHA! (#60)

Throw a ball around and uncover learning
Source: Catherine Louis and Stefan Haas via Amber Haley

Throw a ball (e.g. koosh ball) around the team and uncover positive thoughts and learning experiences. Give out a question at the beginning that people answer when they catch the ball, such as:

One thing I learned in this retrospective
One awesome thing someone else did for me

Depending on the question it might uncover events that are bugging people. If any alarm bells go off, dig a little deeper. With the '1 nice thing'-question you usually close on a positive note.

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Check In - Quick Question (#3)

Tell me something I don’t know (#133)

Mad Sad Glad (#7)

Dot Voting - Worked well, Do differently (#39)

AHA! (#60)

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Created by Corinna Baldauf

Co-developed by Timon Fiddike