Retrospectives workshop

Last week I was fortunate enough to take a day away from the coal face to attend Rachel Davies’ new workshop “How to facilitate Retrospectives on Agile projects”. This is a new workshop that Rachel has developed and had attracted a group of 10 delegates to Regents Park in London on a sunny Tuesday.

Among the delegates was Jo Cranford of spikethepoodle.com (a little free advertising for you Jo) fame and I’m sure that she will have something to say about the session for those looking for a second opinion.

I always feel that meeting with a group like this who have varied experiences but common goals is productive in it’s self. This time was no exception, the group included a wide variety from those new to retrospectives to practising SCRUM masters and retrospective facilitators looking to freshen up there retrospectives.

I hadn’t picked up on this in the workshop title but Rachel was keen to concentrate on the specifics of sprint / iteration retrospectives and how this may differ from a project or longer term retrospective. In particular she considered the challenges of tight time scales. Given this pretext it was possible to provide a highly focused day with a healthy mix of slides and practical exercises. In particular Rachel expanded on the skills a facilitator must develop such as managing team dynamics and managing decision making.

The course benefited from a combination of theory, insights from a practitioner and roll-play. A taught part of this course was necessary and the generally accepted medium is projected slides. This seemed to frustrate all concerned, even Rachel commented negatively on the slide content. In my experience a white board is orders of magnitude more effective for teaching off. By contrast a big plus for me was the relaxed approach that included a group walk in the park after lunch. The roe pay after lunch provided an opportunity to try some of the techniques that had been discussed in the morning.

During the course Rachel made a number of recommendations:
Books

• Project Retrospectives – Norman Kerth: The book all those interested in retrospectives must read.
• Agile Retrospectives – Esther Derby & Diana Larsen: seems like a sequel to Kerths book concertrating on the shorter retrospectives recommended in many agile approaches

Logistics

• Sticky notes: A must in all shapes, colours & sizes. These are used through all sorts of exercises to allow a group to add ideas to any type of chart or timeline.
• Fidgets: These are whatever can keep the groups fidgeters busy during the retrospective. This could include some sort of talking token, mascot type cuddly toy or Rachel’s patented group of aliens that were ought over throughout the course.