Retromat: Retrospective Guide: 42-4-8-48-34

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.

Timeline (#4)

Participants write down significant events and order them chronologically
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Divide into groups with 5 or less people each. Distribute cards and markers. Give participants 10min to note down memorable and / or personally significant events. It's about gathering many perspectives. Consensus would be detrimental. All participants post their cards and order them. It's okay to add cards on the fly. Analyze.
Color Coding can help to see patterns, e.g.:

Emotions
Events (technical, organization, people, ...)
Function (tester, developer, manager, ...)

5 Whys (#8)

Drill down to the root cause of problems by repeatedly asking 'Why?'
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Divide the participants into small groups (<= 4 people) and give each group one of the top identified issues. Instructions for the group:

One person asks the others 'Why did that happen?' repeatedly to find the root cause or a chain of events
Record the root causes (often the answer to the 5th 'Why?')

Let the groups share their findings.

Take a Stand - Line Dance (#48)

Get a sense of everyone's position and reach consensus
Source: Nick Oostvogels

When the team can't decide between two options, create a big scale (i.e. a long line) on the floor with masking tape. Mark one end as option A) and the other as option B). Team members position themselves on the scale according to their preference for either option. Now tweak the options until one option has a clear majority.

Shower of Appreciation (#34)

Listen to others talk behind your back - and only the good stuff!
Source: Ralph Miarka

Form groups of 3. Each group arranges their chairs so that 2 chairs face each other and the third one has its back turned, like this: >^<. The two people in the chairs that face each other talk about the third person for 2 minutes. They may only say positive things and nothing that was said may be reduced in meaning by anything said afterwards.
Hold 3 rounds so that everyone sits in the shower seat once.

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.