Planning your next agile retrospective? Start with a random plan, change it to fit the team's situation, print it and share the URL. Or browse around for new ideas!
Participants take a stand, indicating their satisfaction with the iteration Source: Corinna Baldauf, inspired by Christoph Pater
Create a big scale (i.e. a long line) on the floor with masking tape. Mark one end as 'Great' and the other as 'Bad'. Let participants stand on the scale according to their satisfaction with the last iteration. Psychologically, taking a stand physically is different from just saying something. It's more 'real'. You can reuse the scale if you close with activity #44.
The team nominates stories for awards and reflects on the winners Source: Marin Todorov
Display all stories completed in the last iterations on a board. Create 3 award categories (i.e. boxes on the board):
Best story
Most annoying story
... 3rd category invented by the team ...
Ask the team to 'nominate' stories by putting them in one of the award boxes. For each category: Dot-vote and announce the winner. Ask the team why they think the user story won in this category and let the team reflect on the process of completing the tasks - what went good or wrong.
Gauge participants' satisfaction with the retro on a scale from 1 to 5 in minimum time Source: ALE 2011, Corinna Baldauf
Put sticky notes on the door with the numbers 1 through 5 on them. 1 is the topmost and best, 5 the lowest and worst.When ending the retrospective, ask your participants to put a sticky to the number they feel reflects the session. The sticky can be empty or have a comment or suggestion on it.
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.