Retromat: Retro Ceremony Structure: 82-97-74-125-15

Three Words (#82)

Everybody sums up the last iteration in 3 words
Source: Yurii Liholat

Ask everyone to describe the last iteration with just 3 words. Give them a minute to come up with something, then go around the team. This helps people recall the last iteration so that they have some ground to start from.

#tweetmysprint (#97)

Produce the team's twitter timeline for the iteration
Source: Thomas Guest

Ask participants to write 3 or more tweets on sticky notes about the iteration they've just completed. Tweets could be on the iteration as a whole, on individual stories, a rant, or shameless self-promotion - as long as they are brief. Hash tags, emoticons, attached pictures, @usernames are all welcome. Allow ten minutes to write the tweets, then arrange them in a timeline and discuss themes, trends etc. Now invite participants to favorite, retweet and write replies to the tweets, again following up with discussion.

Pessimize (#74)

If we had ruined the last iteration what would we have done?
Source: Judith Andresen

You start the activity by asking: 'If we had completely ruined last iteration what would we have done?' Record the answers on a flip chart. Next question: 'What would be the opposite of that?' Record it on another flip chart. Now ask participants to comment the items on the 'Opposite'-chart by posting sticky notes answering 'What keeps us from doing this?'. Hand out different colored sticky notes to comment on the comments, asking 'Why is it like this?'.

Three by Three (#125)

Build on each other's ideas to create a great action item
Source: Simon Tomes

This silent brainstorming technique helps the team come up with truly creative solutions and gives quiet people equal footing:

Everyone writes 3 sticky notes with 1 action idea each
Go around the room and pitch each idea in 15 seconds
Gather all stickies so that everyone can see them
Each team member adds their name to the sticky note that inspires them the most
Take off all ideas without a name on them

Repeat this process 2 more times. Afterwards, everyone can dot vote to determine which action(s) the team is going to implement.

Appreciations (#15)

Let team members appreciate each other and end positively
Source: Agile Retrospectives who took it from 'The Satir Model: Family Therapy and Beyond'

Start by giving a sincere appreciation of one of the participants. It can be anything they contributed: help to the team or you, a solved problem, ...Then invite others and wait for someone to work up the nerve. Close, when no one has talked for a minute.

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.