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Set the stage

Why Retrospectives? (#46)

Ask 'Why do we do retrospectives?'
Source: Pete Roessler
Go back to the roots and start into the retrospective by asking 'Why do we do this?' Write down all answers for everyone to see. You might be surprised.
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Gather data

Hit the Headlines (#119)

Which sprint events were newsworthy?
Source: Thomas Guest
Collect some news headlines in advance and take them to the retrospective to serve as examples. Try to gather a mixture of headlines: factual, opinion, review. Place the headlines where everyone can see them. Hand out sticky notes. Give team members 10 minutes to come up with their own headlines describing newsworthy aspects of the sprint. Encourage short, punchy headlines.
Stick the completed headlines to a whiteboard. If any cover the same news item, combine them. If any are unclear, ask the reporter for details. Vote on which news items to discuss and analyse in more depth.
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Generate insights

Election Manifesto (#105)

Different parties present manifestos for change. Who will get your vote?
Source: Thomas Guest
Is there an election coming up in your country? Use it as a back drop for your team to convince each other of their change initiatives.

Ask the participants to split into political parties with 2 or 3 members. For 20 minutes, each party will work on a manifesto for change. What isn't working? How would they improve things?
Afterwards the parties meet again and their leaders present their manifestos. Be prepared for tough questions and heckling!
Now plan for a better world! Summarise the manifestos with sticky notes, one color per party. What do the parties agree on? Which promises are unrealistic and which can you achieve?
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Decide what to do

Maximize Follow Through (#117)

Think about how the team will follow up and set yourselves up for success
Source: Chris Rimmer
Prepare a flip chart with 4 columns titled 'Action', 'Motivation', 'Ease' and 'Reminder'. Write down the list of actions the team wants to take in the first column. Read out each action and fill in the other columns by asking:
  • Motivation - How can we motivate ourselves to do this?
    Examples: 'Jane will own this and report back at the next retrospective', or 'We'll reward ourselves with cake on Friday if we do this every day'

  • Ease - How can we make it easy to do?
    Example: For an action 'Start involving Simon in the stand up' a possibility could be 'Move the task board next to Simon's desk'

  • Reminder - How will we remember to do this?
    Examples: 'Richard will put a reminder in Google Calendar' or 'We'll do this after the stand up each day'
Actions do not require all of the above. But if there are no suggestions for any of the columns, ask the team if they really think they will do it.
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Close the retrospective

Helped, Hindered, Hypothesis (#16)

Get concrete feedback on how you facilitated
Source: Agile Retrospectives
Prepare 3 flip chart papers titled 'Helped', 'Hindered', and 'Hypothesis' (suggestions for things to try out). Ask participants to help you grow and improve as a facilitator by writing you sticky notes and signing their initials so that you may ask questions later.
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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.