Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Scrum Retrospective

My experience proved that structured meetings always yield better results and reduces time waste. I normally follow 6 steps described below for retrospective meetings to achieve the desired results
· Set the tone – Inspect <-> Adapt cycles
· Recap - summarize impact of previous retrospectives
· Collate - the data from the scrum team – Just collect – No judgment
· Deep drive - identify why things went wrong, why successful, capture team energy
· Decide - what to do – based on the deep drive output, create action items and plan
· Conclude – summarize, conclude and thank the team

Set the tone …
Agile is methodology focuses on what is in store than wasting time on worrying about the past. At the same time, agile implementation benefits when we show the progress. This can be achieved by using small and measurable INSPECT and ADAPT cycles. We inspect the past to identify what t adapt for improvement in next cycle. This is the key success factor of Agile.

Scrum Master outlines the retrospective format, basic rules of the meeting, and goal to achieve as opening of the meeting. Goal should be something like “achieve increased quality by decreased time”. Scrum master should moderate entire meeting by keeping following basic principle in mind:
· Dialogue Vs debate
· Conversation Vs argument
· Inquiry Vs Advocacy
· Understanding Vs defending

Recap …
Scrum Master list the action items adapted in the previous cycles (Inspect – Adapt cycle). Let the team appreciate the adopted action items during discussion. Retrospective will be a futile exercise if we fail to adapt the action items of previous cycle. Entire meeting will become yet another time waste meeting. Team will tend to attend the meeting for the sake of supervisor not for the team.


Collate …
Collate or Gather Data from the team. Scrum master should ask the team to collect the required data independently and capture on a paper 1 to 2 days before the retrospective meeting. Suggest the team to recap the sprint cycle while driving (please watch the traffic signals and/or police to avoid tickets J ) or have small discussion at coffee table etc. Team can bring any point without shy. Scrum master will note down on scrum board.
Categorize the points into following traffic signals:
Green continue
Yellow improve
Red drop


Deep drive …
Look into all the points collected in the previous step amicably. Identify the points to adapt. Ask more generalized questions possibly in relation to actions from the previous sprint and whether they helped the process. Categorize them into Positive, Negative, Ideas, Appreciations. Use SWOT analysis model for better judgment. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis ). Rank the items with in the quadrant.

Decide …
Pick up top ranked items that can be implementable (short term and long term) and let the team to identify the tasks and subtask. In this step the scrum master should get consensus from whole team for agreed action items. Let the team members own them.

Conclude …
Closing a meeting by summarizing the “Take away from this meeting”, Readout action items and thank the team for participation. Some people does survey after the meeting to know whether the meeting is useful or not.