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

Postcards (#42)

Participants pick a postcard that represents their thoughts / feelings
Source: Corinna Baldauf
Bring a stack of diverse postcards - at least 4 four times as many as participants. Scatter them around the room and instruct team members to pick the postcard that best represents their view of the last iteration. After choosing they write down three keywords describing the postcard, i.e. iteration, on index cards. In turn everyone hangs up their post- and index cards and describes their choice.
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Gather data

I like, I wish (#126)

Give positive, as well as non-threatening, constructive feedback
Source: Inspired by Satu Rekonen
Hang up two flip charts, one headed 'I like' and the other 'I wish'. Give the participants 5-10 minutes to silently write down what they liked about the past iteration and the team and what they wish was different (and how it should be different) – one point per sticky note. When everyone is finished, go around the circle and everybody reads out their 'I like' items and hangs them up. Repeat the same for the 'I wish' stickies. Either debrief or use the stickies as input for the next phase.

Variation: Add a third column headed 'I wonder' for things that are puzzling or that they would like to explore.
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Generate insights

Cause-Effect-Diagram (#25)

Find the source of problems whose origins are hard to pinpoint and lead to endless discussion
Source: Henrik Kniberg
Write the problem you want to explore on a sticky note and put it in the middle of a whiteboard. Find out why that is a problem by repeatedly asking 'So what?'. Find out the root causes by repeatedly asking 'Why (does this happen)?' Document your findings by writing more stickies and showing causal relations with arrows. Each sticky can have more than one reason and more than one consequence
Vicious circles are usually good starting points for actions. If you can break their bad influence, you can gain a lot.
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Decide what to do

Pitch (#73)

Ideas for actions compete for 2 available 'Will do'-slots
Source: Judith Andresen
[Caution: This game creates 'winners' and 'losers'. Don't use it if the team has power imbalances.]

Ask everyone to think of 2 changes they'd like to implement and write them down on separate index cards. Draw 2 slots on the board. The first team member puts their favorite change idea into the first slot. His neighbor puts their favorite into the second slot. The third member has to pitch her favorite idea against the one already hanging that she favors less. If the team prefers her idea, it's swapped against the hanging one. This continues until everyone has presented both their cards.

Try not to start the circle with dominant team members.
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Close the retrospective

You and Me (#102)

Recognize the efforts of teammates and self-improve a little
Source: Mike B.
Put up 2 columns on a white board: 'Thank you!' and 'My action'. Ask everybody to write one sticky per column: Something they want to thank another teammate for doing; and something they want to change about their own behavior in the next iteration. It can be something really small. Once everyone is finished, do a round for each person to present their stickies and post them to the board.
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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.