Every Team Should Do Retros, Agile or Not

How we socialized the culture of retros in the organization outside of our Agile teams

Teams that follow Agile development principles know that retrospectives are an integral part of the process for continuous improvement. The digital team at New York Public Radio has been doing retros for years now as part of our product strategy and agile software development process. But what about the other non-agile teams at the New York Public Radio? We have a ton of projects and initiatives happening at the organization that are not using any Agile frameworks. Do these editorial and business teams have the tools they need to properly reflect on their process, learn from their mistakes, and highlight opportunities for change? The answer is, sort of, but not easily.

I got really excited when an idea was floated in a CEI (the Culture, Equity and Inclusion Council) meeting to introduce a culture of retrospectives across all departments at New York Public Radio. This was a great opportunity to test Agile tools in an organization that, outside of our Digital team, does not formally use Agile methodologies. Nor does it, for the most part, have a good understanding of what the Agile mindset is.

We formed a small working group of five people from the Council representing different parts of the organization (Digital, Content, Legal, and Listener Services) with varying degrees of experience with Agile. Two of the five had never attended a retro before. The goal for this team was to create and launch an informal initiative to promote a culture of retros across New York Public Radio in order to foster an environment of continuous improvement.

The working group came up with a couple tactics, outlined here:

1. Draft a one-sheeter guide that explains what a retro is and what it’s used for.

The one-sheeter contains all the basics of what a retrospective is, what it’s used for, and why it’s such an important practice for our organization to adopt.

In the guide, we provide recommendations on the sorts of projects that would benefit from retros. For instance, after a fundraising pledge drive or a podcast launch, teams should regroup to celebrate what worked well and identify areas that did not. What learnings were gained by the team? What changes can they make for the next time they launch a podcast, or even a new episode of a podcast?

The guide includes best practices and foundational ground rules. We ask that teams embrace a positive spirit of continuous improvement and be open to share in a safe space. We include ground rules (from Atlassian’s Team Playbook):

• Don’t make it personal, don’t take it personally.
• Listen with an open mind, and remember that everyone’s experience is valid (even those you don’t share).
• Set the boundary of your discussion — is it that last sprint? the last quarter? since the project started? Be clear how far back you’re going to go.
• Retros are BLAMELESS…encourage the team to embrace an improvement mindset, away from blame.

We recommend that they come out of the retro with clear action items. Most importantly, we ask that they incorporate this feedback into the next iteration or project.

We also include suggestions for retro formats next to each type of project: Use the Sailboat or Easy as Pie after a launch, or the Superpowers activity for team resets.

2. Socialize and evangelize

We have a guide, now what? How do we let other teams know about it and how do we help them put these tools into practice?

Here are some tactics the working group agreed to try:

• Hold lunch-and-learns to socialize retrospectives, provide examples and outcomes
• Form a volunteer coaching group to facilitate retrospectives across the organization and coach individuals who are interested in holding one
• Create a slack channel for retro facilitation and information-sharing
• Attend various department standing meetings and introduce the concept of retros to those teams

The first thing we did was hold a retrospective with the CEI council members as many had never attended one before. The subject of the retro was the EVA’s (Employee Value Awards), an initiative that was led by this council and had taken place a few months back.

We kicked off the retro with an overview of what a retrospective is and set some ground rules. I used the 4L’s format, an activity that is simple and easy to grasp.

The conversations were lively and participants were engaged. We surfaced a few key issues and aligned on concrete next steps to improve the EVA process for the next round in the fall. The retro was a success!

An added win was that a colleague who attended this retro (it was her first time) was very inspired by the whole thing. A few weeks later she planned a retro for her team on the fall membership fundraiser that had just completed. She made sure to include members representing four different divisions within the larger membership department who don’t normally get together after a fundraiser. As a result, the retro gave a forum for open discussion amongst the divisions and helped create more empathy for co-workers in the other disciplines.

”Because of the inclusive format, people who normally don’t speak up felt compelled to share their thoughts and pain points,” she commented. “You could tell there was an appetite for learning and understanding the challenges everyone faces during the membership drive. Many people chimed in with possible solutions or suggestions even if it was not their area of work. And because so many questions surfaced, there were opportunities for the leaders in the room to shed light on decisions. We were able to explain the why!”

So is it OK to ask teams to do retros when they don’t otherwise practice Agile?

The answer is a resounding YES. We realize that we can only take this initiative so far in an organization that is not fully adapting Agile. Without the infrastructure to support and operationalize the Agile process and framework holistically, we will face challenges in formalizing this practice in a meaningful way. Nevertheless, we can encourage managers and team leaders to include this activity as part of their toolkit to improve the way we work at New York Public Radio. Yes, there are shortfalls to this approach, but ultimately we feel this is one big step in the right direction. It is, after all, instilling a culture of introspection and self-betterment.

Additional Resources

Sprint Retrospective ideas on FunRetro.com
How to Run an Agile Retrospective — Atlassian.com Team Playbook