Retromat: Post Mortem Event Plan: 3-65-94-124-120

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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

Appreciative Inquiry (#65)

Lift everyone's spirit with positive questions
Source: Doug Bradbury, adapted for SW development by Corinna Baldauf

This is a round-based activity. In each round you ask the team a question, they write down their answers (gives everyone time to think) and then read them out to the others.
Questions proposed for Software Development teams:

When was the last time you were really engaged / animated / productive? What did you do? What had happened? How did it feel?
From an application-/code-perspective: What is the awesomest stuff you've built together? What makes it great?
Of the things you built for this company, which has the most value? Why?
When did you work best with the Product Owner? What was good about it?
When was your collaboration best?
What was your most valuable contribution to the developer community (of this company)? How did you do it?
Leave your modesty at the door: What is the most valuable skill / character trait you contribute to the team? Examples?
What is your team's most important trait? What sets you apart?

('Remember the Future' (#37) works well as the next step.)

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Generate insights

BYOSM - Build your own Scrum Master (#94)

The team assembles the perfect SM & takes different points of view
Source: Fabian Schiller

Draw a Scrum Master on a flipchart with three sections on him/her: brain, heart, stomach.

Round 1: 'What properties does your perfect SM display?'
Ask them to silently write down one trait per note. Let participants explain their notes and put them on the drawing.
Round 2: 'What does the perfect SM have to know about you as a team so that he/she can work with you well?'
Round 3: 'How can you support your SM to do a brilliant job?'

You can adapt this activity for other roles, e.g. BYOProductOwner.

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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).

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Close the retrospective

My Team is Awesome (#120)

Acknowledge what's awesome about your team
Source: Jesus Mendez

Give each team member a piece of paper and ask them to write down the following text:
'My team is awesome because _______________
and that makes me feel __________________'

Everyone fills out the blanks for themselves and signs below. When everyone is finished, put up the sheets on a wall. A volunteer reads out the sheets and the team celebrates by cheering or applausing. Take some time to review and share observations. Take a picture to remind the team how awesome it feels to be part of the team.

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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.