I previously blogged about how important I think retrospectives are, and you can read it here.

We recently decided to try and mix up our team EOS Level 10 meeting slightly by replacing the Issue Identification and Resolution portion of the meeting with a retrospective activity once a month, for a couple months.

In order to spur thought and at the same time do some team bonding we tried a Ghostbusters inspired ESP retrospective.

The Activity

Time Allotment: 40 – 45 minutes (for 10 people)

Materials: Index Cards (large) or standard sized plus sticky notes

  1. Go over the goal / scope of the retrospective (5 minutes)
    • The overall goal of this exercise is to get people thinking in different ways about what we are doing that is great and what we can improve upon
  2. Hand each person an index card
  3. Each person writes their name on the front of the card at the top and on the back separate the card into two areas. Successes| Challenges. (1 minute)RA1_Card
  4. Set the stage for what is about to happen so people can start thinking about the exercise
  5. Everyone hands their card to the person to the left
  6. Everyone writes what they think the person whose card they have would identify as successes or challenges.
    • Note: If you run out of room on the card – sticky notes can be attached to the back under Successes or Challenges.RA1_Consider
    • We used this to give the mind readers some areas to consider for reflection
    • After 1 to 1.5 minutes an announcement will be made and the cards will be handed to the next person on the left. Repeat until the cards have made it back to the owner.
  7. The owner will then read the entries on the back of their card (silently) and group / summarize them on the front of the card. Then write what they found to be successes or challenges.
    • Give 4-5 minutes for this
  8. Go around the room and have each card owner give their summaries and thoughts based on what they put on the front of the card.
    • Allow 1 to 1.5 minutes per person
  9. The facilitator will then try to determine the most frequent challenge and ask the group how they would improve the situation (if they could do anything they wanted)
    • Allow 10 minutes for this
  10. Try to draw a consensus to a couple changes to try and implement
    • Allow 5 minutes for this
  11. Highlight the most common successes identified to make sure we keep doing them
  12. Report back on the effort the following week

Here is the slide deck used for the activity:

RA1_AintAfraidOfNoRestrospective

 

My reflection on the activity

For the first activity I thought it went fairly well.

Since not everyone on the team had worked on a lot of projects with everyone else the number one question raised during the activity was “what scope should be considered?” For this reason we left the scope open to the last sprint, project, rocks, or anything you knew the person had been involved in. A clearer definition of reflection scope could have been helpful.

We completed the activity in the allotted 45 minutes, but I think the group discussion could have used slightly more time to dig deeper into root causes.

Overall a good learning experience.

 

Let us know your thoughts on the activity in the comments below.

If you have participated in the activity what did you like or what do you think would make it more effective?