Sharing thoughts and learnings

Retrospectives: why is it good to look back?

The easiest and most powerful tool I discovered using Scrum, was the retrospective session.  As the name indicates, it requires to talk about the past.   

Actually this is one of the Agile tools you can use even if you don't have an Agile structure as such.  You just need a team and a leader that performs as Scrum Master.  So, you don't have to be part of IT department to make retrospective sessions.  You don't need a project either.

You are probably working waterfall in many projects and having a weekly session with your team. Maybe you are doing retrospectives without knowing... as it consist on a team meeting.  Nevertheless, this team meeting is special because it has a very specific agenda:

Each participant shall answer the following questions:

  • What are you proud of this week?
  • What have you learned?
  • What would you do different?
  • What are the barriers you face to do a great work the following week?

The full session might take 1 hour... and it could be the best investment you can do in the week.  A servant leader would take notes of the barriers, as those are important issues to solve ASAP... and the team can always help and comment if there is time.  Give it a try... hopefully you will enjoy it as much as I do.