Driving Process Improvements - A Guided Approach to Running Effective Retrospectives
- 1. A guided approach to running effective retrospectives DRIVINGPROCESS IMPROVEMENTS VICTOR SZOLTYSEK
- 2. We know exactly what to do to improve things (but don’t necessity have fi nal say) The client/team doesn’t want to do them Simply telling the client/team doesn’t change their mind If anything client/team only “doubles down” on stubbornness Trouble ensues THENUMBERONEPROBLEM INCONSULTING:
- 3. RETROSPECTIVES At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjust it’s behaviour accordingly. — Agile Manifesto (onesolution)
- 5. easy trivial consequential hard Snacks Nitpicking Tab Spacing Too Much of This Quality Issues Pull Requests Branching Want more !!! Vacation Architecture Problems Kubernetes / Microservices Not Enough of This
- 6. - Important items are held back - Imposter Syndrome, Lack of Psychological Safety, Lack of Anonymity, Bike Shedding, Authority Bias, Sacred Cows, etc - Resistance to change and experimentation - People really don’t like being told what do to (especially by new people, and especially if it implies they’ve been doing things the wrong way) - Lack of focus and measurable outcome - E ff ect: Regular Retro’s are generally not that E ff ective - Though still better then ZERO self re fl ection mechanism CHALLENGES:
- 7. GUIDEDRETROSPECTIVES (betternameTBD) -Preemptive Education -Anonymous Feedback -Structured Mediation
- 8. - New to Existing Project - You don’t have fi nal say - You don’t have full context - Seeing Fundamental Issues - Long Pull Request Times, Di ffi culty Refactoring as example - Resistance to change - Don’t want to go in “guns blazing” .. and criticize everything that’s been done already - Action - Volunteer to run the next retro EXAMPLESCENARIO
- 9. TEAMNAME-RETROSPECTIVE TODO - ADD DATE TODO - NEUTRAL MEDIATOR NAME (ARBITRATOR IF NEEDED)
- 11. CELEBRATEWINS - Big-wins - Kudos - What worked well - 5 minutes
- 13. "Regardlessofwhatwediscover,weunderstandandtruly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given whattheyknewatthetime,theirskillsandabilities,the resourcesavailable,andthesituationathand." RETROSPECTIVE PRIME DIRECTIVE
- 15. PSYCHOLOGICALSAFETY Can we voice opinions about the team and it’s processes without feeling insecure, embarrassed, or penalized ?
- 17. An idea, custom, or institution held, especially unreasonably, to be above criticism. SACREDCOWS Importance of everything being open to discussion and criticism.
- 18. Human brain's tendency to trust and accept superiors regardless of how empty their claims are. Even though our gut tells us something is wrong, we don't question it anyway. AUTHORITYBIAS Importance of everything being open to discussion and criticism. Be tactful :)
- 19. The amount of time spent discussing an issue in an o r g a n i z a t i o n i s i n v e r s e l y c o r r e l a t e d t o i t s a c t u a l importance in the scheme of things. Also known as “Law of Triviality”. BIKESHEDDING Importance of focusing on consequential and often di ffi cult items.
- 20. Focus on this! Not This!
- 21. Psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their skills, talents, or accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a “fraud" often despite evidence to the contrary. Often made worse by the “Dunnig-Kruger”e ff ect. IMPOSTERSYNDROME Importance of speaking up, even when unsure of self.
- 24. ISSUES/CHALLENGES/BLOCKERS/CONCERNS - 10 minutes — until everyone has written and submitted at least 2 paragraphs - Anonymous submission via Google Forms (all RAW feedback will be posted / shared) - Actionable Observations / Concerns / Possible Solutions - Random Discussion Items / Categories : - E ff ectiveness of Stand-ups / Meetings / Rituals - Is there value from current meetings ? Are we spending too much time in meetings ? Are meeting objectives clear ? What about cadence ? - Story Process - Is JIRA process clear ? i.e. what needs to be worked , what to work on next ? Do current stories need more analysis ? Do I know who to talk to when business requirements are uncertain ? Are JIRA stories up-to-date ? Do we have too much process or too little ? - Work in Progress / Context Switching - Are we wasting unnecessary development time due to context switching ? Do members (including boss / PM) know when I’m getting pulled to do work for other teams ? - Transparency and Priorities - Are team goals and status clear ? Is it clear who to get work from ? What priorities are .. - Team Charter - Are our processes clear ? - Friction / Waste - Are we spending an unnecessary amount of time on “friction” and other “non-value” add activities instead of actual “business value” functionality (i.e. our special sauce) ? Which activities ? What are some suggestions to improve things ?
- 25. NEXTSTEPS - Discussion of main items (focus on one or 2) - What’s one small thing that we can change to move things in the right direction ? - Identify process improvements to try and experiment over next Sprint - Any potential “table-napkin” metrics to track ? - Review at the beginning of next Retrospective - Get Team Buy-In (ideally teams suggestions and not yours)
- 26. REVIEWOFLASTSPRINTSACTIONITEMS - Action Item #1 — Keep doing Yes / No - Action Item #2 — Keep doing Yes / No
- 27. TIPS: - Start with small improvements - While “claiming” neutrality, you can always add your own anonymous feedback - Considered focused / themed Retro’s - i.e. tackling speci fi c issues — build problems, quality, etc - Post Retrospectives on Con fl uence / Sharepoint (internally but publicly) - Raw Feedback, and Action Items - Important to Track Historical Changes (for bigger strategic changes)
- 28. END