The concept Retrospective has existed almost forever, but not always
with that name. As long as humans have existed we have looked back at an
activity together, to try to learn from it. After a hunt, after a birth,
after a game, after surgery, etc.
Norman Kerth was the first to name it “Retrospective” in the IT world,
in his book: Project Retrospectives – a Handbook for Team Reviews from
2001. He described a formal method for preserving the valuable lessons
learned from the successes and failures of every project. With detailed
scenarios, imaginative illustrations and step-by-step instructions, this
book started my journey as a retrospective facilitator. I loved the idea
and I began implementing it, first in my own team, then in other teams and
later, outside my organization. The activities “Prime Directive”,
“Developing a Time Line”, “I’m Too Busy” and other activities are from
his book.
Later, Diana Larsen and Esther Derby wrote the book: Agile
Retrospectives – Making Good Teams Great. This introduced shorter
retrospectives that would fit into agile processes. This was a game
changer for me. Their book helped me to plan shorter, more efficient
retrospectives, but also contains tools for the facilitator that helped me
with the actual process of planning the retrospectives in a more efficient
way.
Before Norm Kerth’s book, we only knew about post-mortems. These are
longer reflections conducted after something has gone wrong. Post-mortems
are very useful as a tool for learning from mistakes. Done right, they can
have a healing effect on the people involved, but are not the same as
retrospectives. We do retrospectives, even if things are going well. This
is why the subtitle of Derby Larsen’s book is “- making good teams
great”.
But, my practical experience with retrospectives also showed me how
easily a retrospective can be inefficient. If you don’t follow the idea of
a retrospective and only go through the motions, you will waste time. Due
to the popularity of agile methodologies, retrospectives have become very
widespread. This success has become a problem for retrospectives. Everyone
has to have them, but they do not spend the time to learn how to
facilitate them in the right way. This has led to many unconstructive, and
sometimes even harmful, retrospectives. When people claim that
retrospectives are a waste of time, I often agree with them, when I hear
how they do it. After some years I started to notice patterns in what went
wrong, also in the ones facilitated by me.
A story from Denmark
An organization had decided to be more agile in their way of developing
software. As a part of that they introduced retrospectives as a means to
learn. Some of the team members felt that the retrospectives were “in the
way” of “real” work. They suggested that they could be shorter than the 90
minutes booked for them. Since the facilitator was not very experienced in
retrospectives, she decided to accept.
To spend as little time as possible, they shortened them down. This had
many negative consequences. Let us focus on one here, an anti-pattern I
call Wheel of Fortune. In a real-world wheel of fortune you sometimes
get a prize, and sometimes you lose. Winning or losing is random, and you
aren’t doing anything to improve the odds. This can happen in a team’s
retrospective as well.
The facilitator decided to use the popular “Start, Stop, Continue”
activity to gather data. But to save time, they skipped generating
insights, which is one of the 5 stages of a retrospective. Instead they
jumped from gathering the data to deciding what to start doing, what to
stop doing, and what to continue doing.
For this activity, the facilitator put up three posters, one with the
word “Start”, one with “Stop”, and one with “Continue”. She then asked the
team to write post-it notes and stick them on the posters. One of the
notes read “Start pair programming”, another “Stop having so many
meetings”. The team could create action points out of these: “Three hours
of pair programming, three days a week”. And “no meetings on Wednesdays
and never meetings after lunch”. And in 20 minutes, the retrospective was
over!
This way of holding a retrospective can have dire consequences. If the
post-it notes only show solutions to symptoms, not the actual problems,
you can only fix the surface. Perhaps the reason for the team not having
pair programming is not that they forget, but that there is not enough
psychological safety. In this case, pushing them to schedule it in the
calendar will not help. Either they will still not do it, or they will do
it and people will feel uncomfortable and leave the team, or even the
company.
Another cause for not having pair programming, could be that they do
not know how to do it in a remote setting. Again, this is a problem that
is not solved by putting pair programming in the calendar.
The same applies to the note about meetings. The problem with the
meetings might be the quality and not the quantity. In that case, having
fewer meetings will not solve the problem, only make it less obvious. When
teams ask for fewer meetings, it is often improved meeting hygiene that
can solve the real problem.
Wheel of Fortune
When a team “solves” symptoms instead of problems, the problems will
still be there, and they will show up again. As in a real Wheel of
Fortune they might get lucky. Perhaps some of the things they solve might
have been the real problems. But often we only see the symptoms and we
rush to ‘solutions’ that don’t address root causes. The result is that
even these short retrospectives feel like a waste of time, because it is a
waste of time to discuss and react only to symptoms.
An anti-pattern must have a refactored solution, a description
of a solution that is better than the antipattern solution. In this case,
the refactored solution is to make sure to generate insights before you
decide what to do. Before you jump to conclusions. You can do this with a
simple discussion about the issues that come up. Or with a “5 whys” interview. If it looks like a complex problem,
a fishbone analysis might be useful.
Examples of complex problems are “missing a deadline”, or “not following
the peer review process”. Stated like this, they sound simple, but the
short description hides a complexity: These problems can have many
different causes.
In the Soup
At the next retrospective another antipattern showed up. The team
wanted to discuss the impact of the lousy software their vendors
provided them with. The quality of this was a constant problem
for the team. Their own software systems were greatly affected
by this, and they had tried to escalate the problem to
management. The team had discussed this before, many times. Every
time they discussed it, they got frustrated and sad and nothing changed.
It made the retrospectives feel like a waste of time, because it was a
waste of time to discuss things they could not change. This is an example
of the antipattern In the Soup.
When you are in the soup, you are spending time on things you cannot
improve. Instead of learning about and improving the issues you are able
to change.
The refactored solution is to use an activity called In the Soup,
where you ask the team to divide the things they are discussing into
things they can do something about, things they can influence, and things
that are in the soup. When things are in the soup, they are a part of life
that you cannot change. Your time is better spent accepting and finding a
way to adapt to the situation. Or changing your situation by removing
yourself from the soup. You can use this activity right after you have
gathered data as shown below. Or you can use it when you decide what to do
in order to not leave the retrospective with action points that are not in
your power to implement.
Figure 1:
Things we can do, things we can influence, things that are in
the soup.
Loudmouth
In this team they now know how to focus their time on the things they
can change, and they have learned how valuable it is to spend time on
generating insights. But they still have one problem. They have a
Loudmouth in the team. In all the discussions in the retrospectives
(and in all other meetings) this loudmouth interrupts and tells long
stories and makes it impossible for other team members to take part. The
facilitator tries to invite other team members to speak up, but things do
not change.
This antipattern is something that is often found, but it is not hard
to solve. The first thing to be aware of is why it is a problem. Some
people might say that if someone has something to say, then they should be
allowed to say it, and I agree. But for a retrospective, the time is set
aside for a team to share, appreciate and learn together. And if only
part of the team is able to do that, the time may be partly wasted.
The refactored solution for a team with a loudmouth is to stay away
from plenary discussions. Instead divide people into smaller groups, or
even pairs, to discuss subjects. You can also introduce more writing and
moving of post-its instead of speaking. It can even be beneficial to talk
to the loudmouth after the retrospective. They might not be aware of the
effect they have on others, and often they are very grateful to learn this
about themselves. I have worked with loudmouths that found it changed more
aspects of their lives to be aware of this tendency. Some people are what
we call “active thinkers”, and they need to talk or do something to think.
Obviously they need to be loud when they are thinking, but there is no
harm meant by it.
In this article you have been introduced to three of the most common
antipatterns in retrospective facilitation, and you now have some
tips and tricks on how to avoid to be stuck in one of them. But
remember that the most important skill a facilitator can have is
not to know a lot of activities by
heart, but to listen, to use their intellect to de-escalate conflict
and to continue to reflect and learn what works
for them.