A Serious Look at Playful Retros
To play or not to play. That’s the question.
Applying playfulness at the Scrum Retrospective is a subject of spirited debate. Good, let’s disagree!
At the heart lies a fundamental question: should retrospectives be serious and strictly business, or is there room for a touch of play? And what if play gets in the way of addressing meaningful improvement?
Playful formats.
There are plenty of ways to introduce playfulness to your events, with new ones emerging every week. You may be familiar with Stop/Start/Continue, Mad/Sad/Glad, Liked/Loved/Lacked/Longed, or the good old Sailboat. Also worth mentioning is Chris Stone’s respectable contributions to the community, creatively crafting and sharing thematic templates based on universes like Harry Potter, Marvel, and even Barbie.
“Playing is for infants…”
Critical professionals claim playfulness results in “The Infantilization of Agile”. “Infantization” characterizes playing as profoundly unserious, unprofessional, childlike, and immature. Some practitioners are publicly opining that fun gets in the way of productivity.
Is “playing” serious business, or is it a counterproductive fad, an unprofessional anti-pattern?
Rather than throwing the ‘infant’ out with the bathwater, let’s explore the benefits of playfulness based on (neuro)science. While engaging in play, there is an increase in the release of chemicals such as serotonin, oxytocin, endorphin, and dopamine. Did you know that playing:
- Improves brain function.
- Boosts energy and happiness.
- Deepens connections and builds trust.
- Relieves stress.
- Channels conflict positively.
- Encourages creativity (required for complex problem-solving)
- Leads to breakthroughs.
- Stimulates interpersonal adaptability.
- Boosts the immune system.
- Increases mental health.
I’m surprised that even professional Scrum trainers coat gamification and playfulness as something inherently unserious and even unprofessional.
All while the cover of the Scrum Guide reads that it contains the “rules of the Game”.
Scrum is a game and a game is played.
Discouraging free, open, creative play is very common in the workplace. These cultures are about predictable delivery and productivity: more, better, faster. Naturally, they accomplished the opposite, and that’s why they crave it so much. This keeps them rigidly stuck in their paradigm.
Playfulness is a threat to managers who value being in control. They believe that humor and creativity is an expression by their subordinates to question their authority. They are afraid employees other than themselves gain confidence, have fun, can speak out, and take control of their way of working — which they feel undermines their superior position.
Playfulness is all about open social interactions.
MIT neuroscientists have found that the longings for social interaction felt during isolation are neurologically similar to the food cravings people experience when hungry.
Playful activities can contribute to neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to reorganize and adapt by forming new neural connections. Engaging in varied and stimulating tasks promotes the development of diverse neural pathways, potentially enhancing cognitive flexibility, problem-solving skills, and adaptability in the workplace. When individuals are engaged in enjoyable tasks, the brain is more receptive to new information.
“It serves creative problem solving, it helps to get insights in different perspectives (even the non-obvious) and it supports ‘novelty’ one of the key factors your brain pays attention too. Trust leads to oxytocin which leads to trustwortiness.” -Evelien Acun-Roos .
In another series of experiments conducted with employees across many US industries with more than 2,000 participants, the costs and benefits of exclusion were measured:
“If workers feel like they belong, companies reap substantial bottom-line benefits. […] High belonging was linked to a whopping 56% increase in job performance, a 50% drop in turnover risk, and a 75% reduction in sick days. For a 10,000-person company, this would result in annual savings of more than $52M.”
— Harvard Business Review 2019
The McKinsey Health Institute’s 2023 survey of more than 30,000 employees across 30 countries found that employees with positive work experiences reported better holistic health, are more innovative at work, and have improved job performance.
The Society of Actuaries Research Institute found there is over 30 percent increase in deaths among working-aged people 35 to 44 in the US. Many of them are working-aged people who are in the prime of their life, the causes of which are attributable to complications that include anxiety, depression, and despair.
“Enablers — aspects of work that provide positive energy such as meaningful work and psychological safety — explain the most variance in holistic health. Those who find meaning in their work and feel they can raise new ideas or objections with their coworkers are more likely to feel they are in better health across all four dimensions” -McKinsey Health Institute’s 2023 survey
A bit of playfulness can be lifesaving. Those who try courageously to interject a bit of fun and spirit into the game must not be shamed or mischaracterized as being infantilizing.
Psychological Safety
Open and playful social interactions contribute significantly to a sense of belonging in the workplace. Playfulness promotes a learning culture. Playfulness requires employees to step outside their comfort zones.
Psychological Safety is a term that Edgar Schein first coined and later popularized by Harvard Business School professor Amy Edmondson. It refers to the shared belief that people are safe for interpersonal risk-taking.
Psychological safety is feeling free to be yourself and speak up without fearing judgment or reprisal, creating a space for open and honest communication.
“As a leader you need people to speak up, and offer their crazy ideas.”
- Amy Edmondson
The science is clear. Edmondson (1999) found a strong relationship with learning behaviors in teams. This has also been found in Agile teams (Dreesen et. al., 2021; Duhigg, 2016). Moe, Dingsoyr & Dyba (2010) conclude that without sufficient trust at the group level, “team members will expend time and energy protecting, checking, and inspecting each other as opposed to collaborating to provide value-added ideas’’.
The ability to give and receive peer feedback is one of the core components of effective teamwork, as also shown in recent research. Agile teams (Strode, Dingsoyr & Lindsjorn, 2022) and (Verwijs & Russo, 2023) found that psychological safety contributes to a climate of continuous improvement. In fact, “it may be one of the strongest single predictors of team effectiveness” according to Verwijs.
Playfulness is for extroverts?
There is a persistent myth that playfulness is just for extroverts.
As it turns out, this is profoundly untrue. Introversion is often misunderstood as shyness or a lack of social skills. Introversion is about energy, not social skills. It doesn’t mean they are incapable of being social or playful. Playfulness is a mindset, not an extroverted trait. Introverts can be just as imaginative, curious, and playful as extroverts, but they may express it in different ways. And that is precisely what playfulness facilitates.
Introverts often prefer deeper, more meaningful connections in their interactions. Playfulness can enhance these connections by fostering shared experiences, inside jokes, and a sense of camaraderie.
Introverts may be more prone to internalizing stress. Therefore they can benefit from playful activities as an outlet. It helps to eject anxiety and tension.
In my experience, dominant, loud, and influential individuals are most resistant to creative forms of play — as playfulness engages and empowers everyone and not just them.
Effective Retros
A retro may be fun but may not result in meaningful change. When there is a lack of psychological safety during Sprint Retrospectives, team members may not address the real elephants in the room.
Playfulness is not the problem in this case. It’s a lack of psychological safety. Elephants in the room will not be addressed when team members are afraid to speak out — with or without play. Playfulness does increase the level of psychological safety, albeit this may take some time.
It’s easy to point the finger and blame playfulness for the lack of an effective improvement plan. What ultimately makes the difference is how safe individuals feel to speak out and address difficult subjects openly.
Counterintuitively, even play without a specific productive intention leads to an increase in productivity. But these effects may not be all that evident in the short term. And that’s precisely the issue: at work, we’re primarily focused on what’s right in front of our very noses because there is this feeling we need to catch up and keep pace. That means there is a bias to conclude there is no time for play and change the paradigm. Trapped in a vicious cycle.
When it comes to Retrospectives, the purpose is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness. What helps is to:
“Choose activities that support the goal of the retrospective. If there’s no way to discuss the activity that makes a connection between the activity and the work, omit it. We’re not against games and simulations — in fact we use them often — when they serve a purpose and move the retrospective forward.”
― Esther Derby, Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
To Play or not to Play?
I like that Sprint Retrospectives serve as a designated carnival of playfulness. It’s the time when we all can engage in a bit of organizational tomfoolery. But it should not be the only time employees are allowed to.
Injecting a dose of playfulness into our daily grind can be as invigorating as a cup of exceptionally strong coffee. A dose of playful interactivity can make a huge positive difference to our mental health.
Yet, let’s face it, there’s a moment for playful banter and a moment for the laser-focused, serious business stuff. I love it when these intertwine, but there certainly are times when they don’t mix. When you are on the verge of releasing a groundbreaking, life-saving medical contraption, that is not the right time to break into a spontaneous game of musical chairs.
In conclusion, the debate over the role of playfulness in Scrum is helpful. It is an opportunity to underscore the tension between seriousness and creativity in the workplace. Whether to play is NOT merely a matter of preference but a crucial consideration for fostering a positive and productive work environment.
A closer look at the benefits of playfulness, supported by neuroscience, suggests a myriad of positive outcomes, including a significant boost in mental health and a stronger sense of belonging.
When addressing concerns about the potential counterproductivity of playfulness in retrospectives, the emphasis should be placed on the level of psychological safety.
With all I have researched, learned, and experienced, I can confidently dispel the myth that playfulness is reserved just for children or extroverts. Where one might argue playfulness is unprofessional — with what we know now, I would argue the opposite is true.
Discouraging playfulness at work is profoundly UNprofessional.
Playfulness, when integrated purposefully and with a clear connection to retrospective improvement goals, can enhance psychological safety over time, enabling teams to address challenging issues openly, all while increasing the ability to respond and deal with change.
When applied intentionally, playfulness can invigorate teams, liberate them from rigid, counterproductive paradigms, and help them cope with the stress and anxiety of change, all while enhancing mental health.
The key lies in treating both seriousness and playfulness as close allies rather than polar opposites.
The Scrum Master Playbook
With my colleague Evelien Acun-Roos, we’re doing plenty of research on the effectiveness of play in complex work. We captured learnings from neuroscience, business science, and educational sciences into a useful Scrum Master Playbook with short practical plays that effectively enable meaningful outcomes.
We apply the scientific principles of playfulness in our training program: the Road 2 Mastery. Here, you can see a collection of photos to see playfulness in action.
If you are looking for more substantiated evidence and research on which we based our book, I can recommend these fascinating books:
Join our pilot
If you are interested in Psychological Safety and Playfulness at work, we’re looking for individuals and teams to participate in our pilot training program. We are putting our latest learnings into practice and validating their effectiveness scientifically. Do you want to join this pilot and contribute to this research? reach out to me at sjoerd.nijland@xebia.com.
Let’s play.
