How to make an interesting and efficient iterative retrospective meeting?

In the process of agile development, the R&D team needs to " small steps, fast iteration, continuous improvement ", iterative review meeting (Retrospective Meeting) is also , 1615e9afb1c3ec is one of the most valuable meetings in the CAPDcrum315e9. The key action in helps the team review and improve the development process and achieve continuous process improvement . However, in actual agile development, "iteration retrospective meetings" are often abandoned for the following reasons:

• The theme is not focused and difficult to implement
• Retrospect does not tell the truth, advice is not taken seriously
• The atmosphere is similar to a "pot meeting" where team members blame each other for excuses
• The meeting was boring and did not really help the team to achieve efficiency gains
• Time is tight between iterations, thinking that retrospectives are of no value

So, how to make an interesting and efficient iterative retrospective meeting? Meetings can follow a roadmap like this: improve meeting transparency, collect data and analyze improvements, adapt to and embrace changes.

The retrospective starts with "transparency"

When a retrospective meeting becomes a "potential meeting", it is often because the team is not "transparent" enough. People sometimes hide their real way of working because they are worried about external accusations. Such hiding makes it difficult for the team to produce effective reflections in retrospective meetings. In order to solve this problem, the retrospective meeting must first start with improving the transparency of the meeting .

Create a safe meeting environment

The retrospective meeting is not only to involve members, but more importantly, to open up and expose the problem without hesitation in order to find ways to improve. Therefore, during the meeting, avoid discussing any issues about personal responsibility . , you can choose the spacious meeting room , or prepare some snacks, create a relaxed discussion atmosphere , and reduce the precautionary psychology of the participants.

Understand the mindset of participants

Ineffective "retrospective meetings" often give people the impression that they shirk each other's responsibilities and waste time. Participating in such meetings will inevitably be heavy and negative. through the "ESVP" game can help the Scrum Master understand the mentality of the participants, but also reflect the possible problems in the iteration , and then gradually guide the team to face the retrospective with a positive attitude.

E: Explorer
S: Shopper
V: Vacationer
P: Prisoner (Prisoner)

Common methods of ESVP

Different roles represent different mentality of participation. Explorers are eager to see every detail and seek to get the most benefit from retrospectives; shoppers like to consider some different things and are satisfied with some new insights; vacationers enjoy retrospectives; and "prisoners" are Trapped in a retrospective, I am more willing to do other things.

"ESVP" is usually used in the opening ceremony of retrospective meeting . When there are many "prisoners", a common strategy is to ask them why they feel trapped in the retrospective and what they want to do. Maybe what they want to do is the best thing we can do at the time; and if there is For many vacationers, retrospective meetings may not produce many insights, and iterations will be under pressure.

Draw the mood curve in the iterative process

Before officially entering the "Analyze Data" link, the Scrum Master also needs to let the participants recall what happened during the iteration and draw a mood curve based on this.

Comparing the "Agile Kanban" and "Burndown Chart" and other visual views of the the key time nodes and information iteration, and combine it with the logs deposited in the iteration of the team, and trace back the logs and team documents. Iterative situation.

ONES Project burndown chart

ONES Project Agile Kanban

Iteration mood curve horizontal axis is the time axis, represents "iterative" time span ; the longitudinal axis emotional , upper quadrant belongs to positive emotions, negative emotions belong to the following quadrants.

Mood curve diagram

The team members draw their mood changes into a curve according to the time of the "iteration", and finally use a word to evaluate their emotions throughout the iteration. Mood curve showing the result may be "positive", it may be "negative", the When the "negative" curve members majority , we should further understand what reason lead, and avoid in subsequent iterations .

Collect data and improve analysis

Collecting various R&D data generated in the iterative process and visualizing it through a unified platform is an important prerequisite for analysis and improvement.

by Performance ONES (performance management) automatically collection development process data , significant savings in the workload of the project manager, and to ensure the objectivity and reliability of data . Based on professional performance metrics system, ONES Performance also pre a multi-dimensional visual report template , meet different teams analysis scenarios , fast understand the R & D performance data , as analysis and positioning problems provides an important basis.

ONES Performance provides professional performance metrics

Analysis and improvement can be carried out through "Sailing Review Model" or "Fishbone Diagram" :

Sailboat review model

analyzes the advantages, disadvantages and risks of the iteration through the "Sailing Review" , among them:

• Ship: on behalf of the project team
• Island: represents the goal to be achieved
• Sun: Represents what has been done well in the past, and can continue to persist in the future
• Feng He Yun: On behalf of the team's strengths
• Anchor point: represents the bad things done in the past and needs to be improved in the future
• Coral: represents an identified risk, which will hinder the future

Sailboat review model

When the end of the sailing review, we will be able to collect to count a large number reflect the real situation of data, these data are located in various graphics represent different meaning, for a good part to do, the team's managers need to be encouraged to strive to do To better, this is the part that is easily overlooked in the actual retrospective meeting. For the part to be improved, the core issue determined by prioritizing.

Fishbone Diagram

fishbone diagram visualizes causality and helps the team analyze multiple potential causes of adverse effects. It is suitable for continuous improvement of . In the fishbone diagram, the problem lies in the head of the fish, and the cause of the problem is the ribs of the fish. The large bones are the main reason, and the middle bones are the sub-causes. keeps drilling down by repeatedly asking "why" , Find the cause, solve the problem .

Fishbone Diagram

Adaptation iteration review

Embrace change

Adaptation is the core of true agility. . The true meaning of retrospectives is to continuously improve the process and make the next step better.

A retrospective meeting is a meeting where everyone in the Scrum team can learn from it. It should be conducted in an interesting way so that everyone can understand what went wrong in the previous Sprint and appreciate the success in the previous Sprint .

can be deposited in ONES Wiki to form a team knowledge base, provide experience reference for other teams and subsequent iterations, and encourage the team to continuously improve .

ONES Wiki organize project documents and manage project knowledge

Based on a deep understanding of corporate agile practices and demand analysis, ONES provides a complete agile R&D management solution to create an efficient teamwork environment to help companies quickly and continuously improve the R&D process.

ONES Agile Solution