Every day a conflict!
How I learned to manage conflicts in my team with a customized Retrospective
Based on my experience
During my studies in the Pier Program at Apple Developer Academy in Naples as a Project Manager of a development team, I realized that one of the most difficult skills is definitely teamwork. Too many factors can affect this skill, such as members’ personalities, goals, preferences, skills, professionalism, and more. I met many conflicts in my team that generated discomfort and delays in delivery. Surely, the best method to solve them is through Retrospective, and after several iterations, I customized this technique and created a guide that helps me manage conflicts within my team. I look forward to sharing this template with you and hope it can help you solve conflicts and increase your productivity.
What is a Retrospective?
The Retrospective is a tool that helps structure positive and negative feedback and plan for improvements after the completion of a project or work sprint. Typically found in agile methodologies, teams use this technique to find out what went well, identify the main cause of problems encountered, and find ways to do better in the next iteration.
About this customized Retrospective
This Retrospective focuses more on the conflicts that can generate among team members and is recommended when in the traditional one someone doesn’t feel free to share their blocks or fears. Understanding what makes a team member happy or sad is crucial to solving personal conflicts and increasing team productivity.
Three benefits of using this Retrospective:
- Feel free to share: Create an environment where each team member feels comfortable sharing their emotions and worries without feeling judged
- Being aware of conflicts in the team: Analyze conflicts present in the team without expressing complaints or accusations but in a constructive way.
- Increase team productivity: Generating action points to solve conflicts increase team productivity and make each member feel appreciated.
How to conduct this Retrospective:
- Before you start: create the right atmosphere. What I usually do and recommend is to create a survey or ask the team questions that they will have to answer anonymously. This is to set the right atmosphere, unlock and open up to the right mindset.
- First step: share your positive and negative feelings (also anonymously). I usually start with the positive feelings and then the negative ones. Each team member writes in the sections following this structure: “When this happened… I felt happy/sad because… For this reason…” It’s important to explain what makes us happy or sad and how it affects our productivity.
- Second step: be aware of the conflicts. Analyze, group, and discuss as a team avoiding sharing personal opinions about what is written because they cannot help solve the conflict and someone may feel judged.
- Third step: generate action points to solve conflicts. Action points are actions or habits that affect the team and not an individual member. It’s important to decide and approve the action points generated together because then you have something written down and shared by all members.
Conclusion
Remember to start the next Retrospective by checking if the action points generated in the previous one worked or if they need to be changed.
This is the template that I created and that I want to share with you. I’ve also added a short guide and examples that might help you lead the session. In my team, this Retrospective has helped us solve our conflicts, be more aligned, and create a more pleasant work environment. As a result, our productivity has definitely increased.
If you also have conflicts within your team I hope my experience can help you and remember that although it may seem difficult at the beginning, it is these conflicts that make you and your team stronger.
Feel free to download and use the Guide!
