Change Management Through Retrospection
Table of Contents
Retrospective is a collaborative team format that combines elements of brainstorming, coaching and feedback. Regular retrospectives that lead to change are an important sign of a self-organising team. But in most cases, retrospectives are purely formal rituals that are done for the sake of ticking boxes (well, we have Scrum). A successful retrospective requires a facilitator (preferably with experience of retrospectives). This is particularly important in new teams. In this article I will try to share my views on retrospectives and, if possible, give some tips on how to conduct them so that this ritual does not become an empty formality.
Purpose of retro
There’s a perception that the purpose of a retrospective is to improve team performance. Stop that. Let’s go back to the core of Scrum. The basis of Scrum is a self-organising team. The key elements of a Scrum team are autonomy and self-organisation. This means that the goal of the retrospective is
to help the team improve its own performance.
Let’s record this as objective #1.
This leads us to goal #2 -
changing people.
So it turns out that
the retrospective is a kind of psychotherapy.
It allows you to create new habits, to change the way you look at something, not just to invent something new.
During the Retrospective the Scrum Team must decide who will be responsible for monitoring and applying the changes.
The Scrum Master will certainly oversee and guide this process.
The Retrospective is a kind of coaching of the team itself.
Try to view your retrospectives through this prism.
For a Retrospective to be effective - it is crucial that people are motivated to change in general.
They need to understand why they need to make the extra effort to change themselves. They need to understand where the team and the organisation as a whole are going.
How people are changing
There are two general principles of mentoring that allow the selection of retrospective activities and the evaluation of their success.
1. Know yourself
To change, the brain needs to make new connections. To facilitate this, we need to create a window of neuroplasticity. To do this, the first part of the review should be structured so that people express their emotions: for example, what kind of weather the issues discussed remind them of.
This is also important as a basis for further discussion. After expressing our emotions, we unconsciously recognise our problems and wishes and begin to solve them. This is where the process of reflection begins.
The main task of the first part of the review is to generate topics for discussion.
2. Use your mind
Once we are aware of emotions, we need to categorise them, evaluate them and decide whether we want to do something with them or not. To choose a rational option to use them.
This is the second part of the retro - discussion and conclusion. This is where concrete steps, goals and responsible persons are defined. Normally, those responsible should decide for themselves, but in a new or inexperienced team, a reasonable nudge is allowed to get the first positive results.
But even if you have not been able to formulate actions with those responsible, the fact that you have had an open conversation about feelings is a good sign. Most changes are gradual and often unconscious. Paying attention to your feelings will help you feel better, and insights may come to you.
The main thing is not to overburden the team and not to formulate too many expectations. Otherwise, the retrospective will be perceived as pressure and instead of an open discussion, everyone will close up and become defensive.
Retrospective structure
The retrospective can be divided into 5 parts:
- Introduction
- Expansion
- Discussion
- Narrowing
- Summary
The specific activities for each part are detailed in numerous articles and books, and there are also ready-made cheat sheets and plans. Therefore, I will simply outline the purpose of each step and why.
1. Introduction
If this is not the first retrospective in the team, you should start by summarising the decisions made at the end of the last retrospective.
A retrospective is an activity that may or may not be regular, depending on the maturity of the team. The Scrum Master’s job is to get the team to embrace the activity and eventually to do it themselves. To do this, you need to show them that the activity has a positive outcome. Therefore, you should start with a review of past retrospectives, focusing on the goals that were achieved in past retrospectives. If something has not been achieved - you should discuss why and decide whether to drop the goal or keep trying to change it. In the first few retrospectives, it is acceptable to push the team to take concrete steps and take responsibility, and then monitor implementation.
The goal of the current retrospective should always be stated. Retrospectives are about reflection and self-improvement of the team’s work processes.
2. Expansion
At this stage, it is a good idea to ask the team to recall work stories that happened before the retrospective and to share their feelings about them. It is more difficult to avoid confronting their own emotions when recalling, but it is easier to avoid confronting current emotions. If the team is having difficulty with past events, you could suggest that they look at tasks from a past sprint and ask them to generate what was good and what could be improved.
If you run regular retrospectives, it is worth changing the activities used so that people do not get locked into a pattern rather than immersed in reflection.
At the end of the sprint, it is necessary to summarise the issues and, if there are a lot of them, to vote and select the most critical ones for further discussion.
3. Discussion
You will discuss selected issues and explore ways of dealing with them. Depending on the number of topics and participants, you can use either sequential or parallel (group) discussion.
At the end, the solutions are grouped and voted on.
4. Narrowing
This is where concrete steps are worked out. It is important to focus on a small number of improvements that can be implemented. It is even more important to focus on issues that have clear champions who are willing to take responsibility for the solution. After all, our ultimate goal is the team’s self-development and subsequent self-organisation.
Sometimes it is worth trying to solve a problem that is not the most effective, so that the team can gain experience of autonomy. Compromises and agreements kill initiative, which is exactly what we need.
If the team is not experienced enough, you need to convince them that time and resources will be allocated to the selected improvements.
Make sure the goals and proposed improvements are specific.
5. Summary
At the end, give a short (up to 5 minutes) feedback on the event. What you liked, what could be done better. You could do this in an interactive voting format. This will not only improve but also consolidate the results of the meeting.
Best Practices
There are a few rules of thumb that have stood the test of time and experience:
- Time constraints. Try to stay within 1.5-2 hours. For an experienced team, the timings are roughly as follows:
- 5 minutes - introduction
- 15 minutes - brainstorming
- 20-30 minutes - collecting topics and clustering
- 20-30 minutes - working through the steps
- 5 minutes - wrap up
- Use of facilitation practices:
- The rule of the raised hand
- Voting in long discussions
- Parking the branches
Conclusion
If you hold retrospectives at least once every 2-4 weeks, after a while you should notice positive changes in the team and growing commitment. A good sign of acceptance is smiling faces and a relaxed atmosphere.