Retromat: XP Post Mortem: 85-7-8-21-17

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.

Mad Sad Glad (#7)

Collect events when team members felt mad, sad, or glad and find the sources
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Put up three posters labeled 'mad', 'sad', and 'glad' (or >:(, :(, :) alternatively). Team members write down one event per color coded card, when they've felt that way. When the time is up have everyone post their cards to the appropriate posters. Cluster the cards on each poster. Ask the group for cluster names.
Debrief by asking:

What's standing out? What's unexpected?
What was difficult about this task? What was fun?
What patterns do you see? What do they mean for you as a team?
Suggestions on how to continue?

5 Whys (#8)

Drill down to the root cause of problems by repeatedly asking 'Why?'
Source: Agile Retrospectives

Divide the participants into small groups (<= 4 people) and give each group one of the top identified issues. Instructions for the group:

One person asks the others 'Why did that happen?' repeatedly to find the root cause or a chain of events
Record the root causes (often the answer to the 5th 'Why?')

Let the groups share their findings.

Merge (#21)

Condense many possible actions down to just two the team will try
Source: Lydia Grawunder & Sebastian Nachtigall

Hand out index cards and markers. Tell everyone to write down the two actions they want to try next iteration - as concretely as possible (SMART). Then everyone pairs up with their neighbor and both together must merge their actions into a single list with two actions. The pairs form groups of 4. Then 8. Now collect every group's two action items and have a vote on the final two.

SaMoLo (More of, Same of, Less of) (#17)

Get course corrections on what you do as a facilitator
Source: Fairly good practices

Divide a flip chart in 3 sections titled 'More of', 'Same of', and 'Less of'. Ask participants to nudge your behaviour into the right direction: Write stickies with what you should do more, less and what is exactly right. Read out and briefly discuss the stickies section-wise.

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.