Retromat: Program Retro Plan with 5 Steps: 85-54-69-125-138

Greetings from the Iteration (#85)

Each team member writes a postcard about the last iteration
Source: Filipe Albero Pomar

Remind the team what a postcard looks like:

An image on the front,
a message on one half of the back,
the address and stamp on the other half.

Distribute blank index cards and tell the team they have 10 minutes to write a postcard to a person the whole team knows (i.e. an ex-colleague). When the time is up, collect and shuffle the cards before re-distributing them. Team members take turns to read out loud the postcards they got.

Story Oscars (#54)

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.

The Worst We Could Do (#69)

Explore how to ruin the next iteration for sure
Source: Corinna Baldauf

Hand out pens and sticky notes. Ask everyone for ideas on how to turn the next iteration / release into a certain desaster - one idea per note. When everyone's finished writing, hang up all stickies and walk through them. Identify and discuss themes.
In the next phase turn these negative actions into their opposite.

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.

Debriefing Cube (#138)

Close with a reflective question from the Debriefing Cube and cards
Source: Chris Caswell and Julian Kea

A good debriefing deepens understanding, learning and sharing. Preparation: Download and assemble the Debriefing Cube and cards. During the retrospective, roll the cube. Then draw a card from the category it shows and use it to prompt a discussion. Repeat as time permits. This will broaden your debriefing options and is especially great for groups without a facilitator to enable them to effectively debrief on their own.

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.