Retromat: Lessons Learned Structure: 76-110-55-11-16

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Set the stage

Round of Admiration (#76)

Participants express what they admire about one another
Source: Judith Andresen

Start a round of admiration by facing your neighbour and stating 'What I admire most about you is ...' Then your neighbour says what she admires about her neighbour and so on until the last participants admires you. Feels great, doesn't it?

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Gather data

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?

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Generate insights

Original 4 (#55)

Ask Norman Kerth's 4 key questions
Source: Norman Kerth

Norman Kerth, inventor of retrospectives, identified the following 4 questions as key:

What did we do well, that if we didn’t discuss we might forget?
What did we learn?
What should we do differently next time?
What still puzzles us?

What are the team's answers?

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Decide what to do

Circle of Questions (#11)

Asking and answering go around the team circle - an excellent way to reach consensus
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Everyone sits in a circle. Begin by stating that you'll go round asking questions to find out what you want to do as a group. You start by asking your neighbor the first question, e.g. 'What is the most important thing we should start in the next iteration?' Your neighbor answers and asks her neighbor a related question. Stop when consensus emerges or the time is up. Go around at least once, so that everybody is heard!

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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.