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Agile Values Cheer Up (#90)

Remind each other of agile values you displayed
Source: Jesus Mendez
Draw 4 large bubbles and write one of the agile core values into each:
  1. Individuals and their interactions
  2. Delivering working software
  3. Customer collaboration
  4. Responding to change
Ask participants to write down instances when their colleagues have displayed one of the values - 1 cheerful sticky note per example. In turn, let everyone post their note in the corresponding bubble and read them out loud. Rejoice in how you embody agile core values :)

Laundry Day (#98)

Which things are clear and feel good and which feel vague and implicit?
Source: Katrin Dreyer
Use this activity if you suspect the team to make lots of unconscious decisions hardly ever questioning anything. You can figure out what things need to be talked about to get an explicit grasp of them.

You need:
  • about 3 metres of string as the clothesline
  • about 20 clothes pins
  • a white shirt (cut from paper)
  • a pair of dirty pants (cut from paper)
Hang up the clothesline and mark the middle, e.g. with a ribbon. Hang up the clean shirt on one side and the dirty pants on the other. Ask the team now to write items onto index cards for each of the two categories: 'Clean - Clear and well understood' and 'Dirty - Unclear and confusing'. Hang up the notes with clothespins and re-arrange them into clusters. Now the team picks 2 'dirty' and 2 'clean' topics they want to talk about, e.g. by dot voting.

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?

Planning Poker Voting (#99)

Use your Planning Poker cards for un-influenced voting
Source: Andreas Ratsch
If you've got very influential and / or shy team members you can re-use Planning Poker cards to vote simultaneously:

Write all suggested actions on sticky notes and put them onto a wall. Hand out an ordered deck of Planning Poker cards to each participant. Count the proposals and remove that many cards from the back of the card decks. If you've got 5 suggestions you might have cards '1', '2', '3', '5', and '8'. This depends on your deck (some have a '1/2' card). It doesn't matter, as long as all participants have the same set of values.

Explain the rules: Choose a card for each suggestion. Choose a low value if the action is not worth doing in your opinion. Choose a high value if the action is worth starting next iteration.

Give them a minute to sort out their internal ranking and then present the first suggested action. Everybody chooses a card and they reveal them at the same time. Add the numbers from all cards and write the sum onto the action. Remove the used poker cards. Repeat this for all actions. If you have more actions than poker values the players can show 'no card' (counting 0) for the appropriate number of times.

Implement the action with the highest sum in the next iteration. Add more actions only if there's team consensus to do so.

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.

(#)


Source:
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.