Constellation — Agile Retrospective Set The Stage Exercise

Hi guys, In this post I offer you a small Agile Retrospective Set The Stage Exercise that can be used at your retrospectives. There are many different exercises out there that can be used to start a retrospective, but I particularly like this one.
I learned it a few months ago in Lyssa Adkin’s workshop in Stockholm (Agile Coaching Teams).This is a great exercise for people who do not like or do not feel comfortable sharing openly their opinion/feelings, at least in the beginning of the project when they still do not completely trust everyone.
If you are interested in getting some extra Agile Retrospectives exercises, I created a blog post with dozens of Agile Retrospectives Ideas, check them and see if you find something interesting.
We begin a retrospective with a welcome to the team members and with setting an affirmative goal for the session, and this is where the “Constellation” exercise can be used.
Like I have already said, due to the cultural backgrounds or the personality of team members, answering some questions can be difficult for some, but this exercise can help, because people do not need to speak to respond to questions.
Hehe, now you might start wondering, “How could it be possible to answer problems in a team meeting without speaking”? Here is how we can do that…
Start with making an open space, move tables and chairs around, if needed. Put an object on the floor and explain to the team that this object is the centre of the Universe and kindly ask them to form a circle it.
If you want to continue you can see the rest of the article on my blog: https://luis-goncalves.com/agile-retrospective-set-the-stage/
My name is Luis Gonçalves and I am an Organisational Transformation Coachand I love to write about Agile Retrospectives, Agile Retrospectives Ideas, Scrum, the role Scrum Master, and Agile in general.
I have been creating Scrum Master Training for the agile community. If you are interested in knowing more or even working with me you can find me here: Agile Coach München.
