Foodies delight — Themed Scrum Retrospective

Spicing up retrospective with amusing activities leads to better results

Check-out activity “doggy bag.” Image by neurosciencemarketing.com

Retrospectives can be a lot of fun with carefully selected activities around a central theme. I found that spicing up every retrospective with amusing activities leads to better results. You should avoid making the retrospective process to be too serious, instead, loosen it up to bring up creative and innovative thinking. Nonetheless, you need a solid structure to achieve an effective retrospective that lets everyone express themselves and bring insight to the table. Last week I decided to build the entire retrospective around food and I was quite satisfied with the results 😀.

The structure I base all my retrospectives on is derived from the 5 phases suggested in “Agile Retrospectives“:

1. The appetizer / Check-in: Set the stage and get everyone into the right mood. This is the time when you let everyone express their feelings.
2. The main course: Gather data and generate insight
3. Entremets: Review previous action items by going through what came out from the last retrospective.
4. Desert / Check-out: Filter the insight and generate action item for the next sprint

The appetizer / Check-in