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Check In - Draw the Iteration (#31)

Participants draw some aspect of the iteration
Source: Corinna Baldauf, adapted from Thorsten Kalnin, Olivier Gourment; Thomas Guest
Distribute index cards and markers. Set a topic, e.g. one of the following:
  • How did you feel during the iteration?
  • What was the most remarkable moment?
  • What was the biggest problem?
  • What did you long for?
  • If the last iteration had been a circus performance, what part did you play? Juggler, funambulist, clown, knife-thrower, ...
Ask the team members to draw their answer. Post all drawings on a whiteboard. For each drawing let people guess what it means, before the artist explains it.
Metaphors open new viewpoints and create a shared understanding.

Movie Critic (#110)

Imagine your last iteration was a movie and write a review about it
Source: Isabel Corniche
Introduce the activity by asking: Imagine your last iteration was a movie and you had to write a review:
  • What was the genre of the movie (e.g. horror, drama, ...)?
  • What was the (central) theme? Describe in 2-3 words.
  • Was there a big twist (e.g. a bad guy)?
  • What was the ending like (e.g. happy-end, cliffhanger) and did you expect it?
  • What was your personal highlight?
  • Would you recommend it to a colleague?
Give each team member a piece of paper and 5 minutes to silently ponder the questions. In the meantime (or before the session) divide a flip chart in 7 columns headed with 'Genre', 'Theme', 'Twist', 'Ending', 'Expected?', 'Highlight', 'Recommend?'. When everyone has finished writing, fill out the flip chart while each participant reads out their notes.
Afterwards look at the finished table and lead a discussion about
  • What's standing out?
  • What patterns do you see? What do they mean for you as a team?
  • Suggestions on how to continue?

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.

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).

Retro Dart (#83)

Check if you hit bull's eye on important issues
Source: Philipp Flenker
Draw one or several dartboards on a flip chart. Write a question next to each dartboard, e.g.
  • We talked about what's important to me
  • I spoke openly
  • I'm confident we'll improve next iteration
Participants mark their opinion with a sticky. Smack in the middle is 100% agreement. Outside the disc is 0% agreement.

(#)


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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.