Ho Hum Scrum Drum: Mixing it Up!
The other day, one of my coworkers from another team, who has recently started using Scrum practices, asked me to offer some advice about making retrospectives more interesting. Talking through some of the ideas I’ve used in the past reminded me that maybe my own retros were getting a bit stale.
One of our scrum masters at ITHAKA has a volleyball. She fastens little folded pieces of paper to it and the team takes turns tossing it around the room and answering questions on a randomly pulled note. The physical activity itself provides a modicum of mental stimulation. Also, the fact that everyone gets a different question offers a variety of perspectives.
To the point, the key to mixing it up is finding ways to gain different perspectives. Most retrospectives start with the scrum master writing some column headings on the whiteboard. These are usually some variation of “What Went Well” and “What Didn’t Go Well” with a possible third column for “Ideas.” Mind you, there is nothing wrong with these column headings and they do get at the heart of what a retro is for: celebrating and reinforcing things that the team is doing right and examining opportunities for improvement.
It’s easy to keep throwing those headings up week after week. Good teams will always come up with interesting stuff to put in all the columns. These things, if followed through, will help the team improve incrementally. But, what if you want to improve dramatically? Will this get you there? Maybe.
In one recent retro, I wrote this column heading on the whiteboard (or wall in our case):
The conversation that ensued was not typical. One suggestion was “the team.” That particular team mostly provides services to other teams within the organization. The discussion on that item was around disbanding the team and embedding its members in the other teams they support.
Whether or not they choose to follow through on that idea, the discussion around how we can best serve our stakeholders was the right one and with everything on the table, new ideas were bound to come out.
What big questions can you ask in your next retrospective? Big questions can have big, groundbreaking, answers. They can force you to question assumptions that you were taking for granted. They can uncover opportunities for transformation rather than incremental improvement. That may not be suitable for every retro, but when was that last time you shook things up?
