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Monthly Archives: December 2011

All About Retrospectives – Collected Links & Lists

27 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by Cara Turner in Agile, Links, Retrospectives, Scrum

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The sites below contain a wealth of information about what agile retrospectives are, how to conduct them, and how they fit into the broader agile picture.

If you’re new to retrospectives, take your time browsing sites that look interesting to you, from basic to advanced. If you’ve been doing this for a while you’re likely to be familiar with a few of the sites; I hope you find some new gems or interesting combinations that spark new ideas for you… would love to hear if you do!

Refactoring your Development Process with Retrospectives
A thorough introduction by Rachel Davies on why retrospectives are important for teams. The article covers learning from experience, the structure of a retrospective, and how to do them well.

Insights You Can Use
Esther Derby’s blog, which is aptly named :-) Filter on Retrospectives for insights specific to retrospectives, how they work, why they fail, and ways to make them stick. For reading and re-reading.

Resources on Retrospectives
Comprehensive links list covering the basics of conducting good retrospectives – what to do and what not to do – as well as interesting variations and experience-based discussions.

Agile Advice – Recommended Materials
A great set of links to all things agile, with retrospective and facilitation concerns featuring under headings like Team Building, Corporate Culture and Self Organizing Teams. Worth trawling.

Agile/Scrum Retrospectives – Tips and Tricks
InfoQ’s useful set of collected tips and techniques for conducting retrospectives – and like many agile blogs, the content continues in the comments section ;-)

The Retrospect Prime Directive

27 Tuesday Dec 2011

Posted by Cara Turner in Agile, Retrospectives, Scrum

≈ Leave a comment

Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.

This quote is what we know as the Retrospective Prime Directive. It comes from Norman L. Kerth’s “Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews” – one of the earliest books specifically on the subject of Retrospectives, written in 2001.*

I hold the Prime Directive to be true in every situation, even when the product is below standard, or it seems that team members are not contributing their best. I find it useful to remember that it’s the best given the resources available and the situation at hand. Retrospectives are the tool we have for surfacing underlying issues that stop us from producing the best of all possible work – from technical to budgetary to interpersonal.

By holding this principle to be true in all situations we get away from blaming and move quickly to searching for the source of problems. It’s also is a significant factor in building trust, and it’s only in a truly trustful environment (safe space) that team members are able to get to the real issues affecting project success – or indeed, feel comfortable sharing their ‘secrets of success’ to enable everyone else to achieve great results.

* Norm Kerth is often referred to as the Father of Retrospectives – his site is at www.retrospectives.com

Cara

I'm Cara Turner and I live by the mantra “Feedback is the breakfast of champions!”.
Read more about me and follow me on twitter @Cara_Faye

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