How I Facilitate Retrospectives

This afternoon I ran a session with the team of Scrum Masters to explain how I would generally run a Sprint Retrospective. I hope this helps provide a reference.
Quick correction, I mentioned the book "Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby. The co Author is not Ainsley Nies. I was getting confused with Liftoff and her co author Diana Larsen (who collaborated with Ester Derby. Apologies.
/ 721338.agile_retrospec...

[@clairecarey8004]

Thanks Gareth, I am going to be a scrum master after 16 years as a lean consultant and systems thinker. Great tips and thank you for sharing.

[@WoodyKafou1]

Great job man! Your video is concise and streamlined! Keep em coming!

[@eschoepis]

great stuff, just planing my first retro and will be using your agenda and tips&tricks :) thanks!

[@garethholebrook]

Glad it was helpful!

[@Kjfinn12]

A powerful presentation and set of techniques. Thank you very much for sharing your craft!

[@garethholebrook]

Glad you enjoyed it!

[@TheAJSound]

Good job Gareth!!

[@garethholebrook]

Thanks, I hope you have practiced a few of the techniques by now.

[@wandacoustas3753]

Thanks so much, Gareth! I'm presenting on retrospectives at our coaching circle soon and will play them your video as my intro - why reinvent the wheel?

[@garethholebrook]

Thanks - I hope it went well.

[@alexanderleanzabhnsdalen8847]

Thank you for sharing. The only thing for me to point out is that the success of the Retro has 2 elements. Awareness & Actions. Is is it not confusing maybe to bring actions from the did not go well part but then you have already the new ideas area pre written? What if you come up with an action which contradicts the new idea which was written before discussing the not well part? What is your opinion?

[@garethholebrook]

This is a good point, I will give it some deeper thought. My initial thinking is that this just frames the discussions that may ebb or flow around. However you may well have identified an area that I might need to improve. BTW, I am still using this video, which is why I am looking at it now. Yesterday I was at a client and explained how I run retrospectives and was just grabbing the link to send to them as a follow up. Broadly I still follow this pattern. Always areas for imrpveoment though so thanks for your idea.

[@harryettridge1766]

Cool video, thanks.. What are the WER parts of Power then?

[@garethholebrook]

Purpose , Outcome, Whats in it for me?, Engagement, Roles. assurity.nz/archives/the-use-of-power-for-meaningful-meetings/ In that company we had every meeting was expected to start with a POWER, although I concede it was often degraded to a PO start (pronounced POO). in fact we had POWER on posters in each room and even the clock behind me on the video had the "POWER: logo. I have done an agile nudge on Power Starts as well as some demonstrations, check my channel.

[@Derkaderka7777]

I don’t quite understand the thank you part of the retro. Are you taking the sticky notes and handing them to the receiver of the thank you only to have the person who wrote it verbally thank the individual aloud?

[@garethholebrook]

Thanks for the question. Showing gratitude helps build trust and cohesion with the team, it also tends to frame positivity which has been shown to improve outcomes. Here is a great article on it from Forbes. www.forbes.com/sites/ericmosley/2019/11/27/the-business-impact-of-gratitude/?fbclid=IwAR26uoD1bbdQMYj_60E-kyYMXv9ClM_T_AfvGQIEeOypHek3DCa5n0dbbV0#198cab37630c

[@alexanderleanzabhnsdalen8847]

@@garethholebrook I think what Derek asks which I also wonder is how in practice you do this. It was not that clear, would be more like a private thing? each person receiving the Kudos . Or we all read the thank you from one member to another member in front of the other team members? Also how would you do it in a virtual environment? I have tried this with a Virtual board, it went fine, but since we were showing this to all, then the many times the thank you tended to be more in Team level more than individual people.

[@garethholebrook]

@@alexanderleanzabhnsdalen8847 I get people to write a thank you out for a specific thing to a specific person :"Thank you Fred for helping me do the unit testing", then I get Fred to read out the card and the conversation to flow. remember this video was done run 2018 (before COVID). In person this is a lot easier. I actually did this at an in-person retro a few weeks ago and it resonates well with the people there. It builds trust, empathy and appreciation.

[@srparker67]

Just a note, there are 5 events in Scrum (you probably know that anyhow)

[@garethholebrook]

Yup, there are 5 events, including the Sprint itself. This was a discussion I was having with the practice of SMs at the time. In the Scrum Guide it is somewhat contradictory as the Sprint is a container for the other events and on page 5 it talks about the 4 events as opportunity to inspect and adapt. Scrum prescribes four formal events for inspection and adaptation, as described in the Scrum Events section of this document: Sprint Planning Daily Scrum Sprint Review Sprint Retrospective

[@kevine.167]

Are you a super nerd or is it an accident, that the length of the video is 13:37?

[@derickcelias]

Poor audio quality.

[@garethholebrook]

yup, I have since invested in a decent lapel mic. I take the view that an imperfect video uploaded a few years ago with zero post prod is infinitely better than the perfect video that I have yet to upload.

[@prateekgupta1462]

Sound quality is very poor ... Request you to kindly upload videos with better quality sound ...thanks

[@garethholebrook]

Thanks - I've now invested in some decent sound, light and camera gear and will be doing quite a few more.