In my recent article on ProjectTimes.com I shared that my belief is that the retrospective is the single most important agility enabling practice, period. So I wanted to share here a few resources for retrospectives and some further thoughts. first the thoughts. Keep it safe psychological safety, the belief that it is safe in this group to speak, is critically important to the success of retrospectives. If people do not feel safe, if they feel their words will be used against them, maybe even used to fire them, they will not speak and the retrospective will be of no use. Creating a context of psychological safety is more than this blog post, heck it is more than several blog posts, it is a book all of its own. That said it is critical that every member of the group, but most especially, the leader, is responsible for creating and maintaining an environment where people feel safe. This is not only important for retrospectives but it is important to the health of your teams in general. One of the things that can happen at a retrospective is it can turn into a bitch session, or a blame/shame session. This is counter productive and easily avoidable with a good facilitator and well facilitated process. Here are some simple suggestions Never use names unless it is about praise for work well done. Focus on the behavior or the problem not the person (People can always change) Believe the best – People generally want to do a good job. Post, enforce and reinforce the prime directive (http://www.retrospectives.com/pages/retroPrimeDirective.html) Another key to retrospectives is to focus on the ruthless elimination of all waste. Lean defines three categories of waste and calls […]
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