# Patrick Kua - The Retrospective Handbook (Highlights)  ## Metadata **Review**:: [readwise.io](https://readwise.io/bookreview/38507358) **Source**:: #from/readwise #from/api_book **Zettel**:: #zettel/fleeting **Status**:: #x **Authors**:: [[Patrick Kua]] **Full Title**:: The Retrospective Handbook **Category**:: #books #readwise/books **Category Icon**:: 📚 **Highlighted**:: [[2024-03-04]] **Created**:: [[2024-03-09]] ## Highlights - A ritual gathering of a community at the end of the project to review the events and learn from the experience. No one knows the whole story of a project. Each person has a piece of the story. The retrospective ritual is the collective telling of the story and mining the experience for wisdom. (Page 9) ^690201899 - taking positive action and acting as a catalyst for change. (Page 9) ^690201900 - At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behaviour accordingly. (Page 10) ^690201901 - Reflecting over a shorter period of time, one to four weeks instead of three to twelve months changed the nature of these meetings. (Page 10) ^690201902 - It is with this agile mindset of constantly learning, inspecting and adapting, that we ask: What did we do well? What did we do less well? What still puzzles us? (Page 11) ^690201903 - We ask ‘What still puzzles us?’ to help team members address issues that don’t fall under the previous two categories. Sometimes agile iterations or sprints move so fast that people don’t have chance to ask about something that just puzzles them. There (Page 11) ^690201904 - We ask ‘What still puzzles us?’ to help team members address issues that don’t fall under the previous two categories. Sometimes agile iterations or sprints move so fast that people don’t have chance to ask about something that just puzzles them. (Page 11) ^690201905 - Introduce the purpose of the retrospective and help establish the focus for this retrospective (eg. the last week, or the last two weeks). (Page 12) ^690201906 - It is important for the facilitator to help collect sufficient information from all participants to generate a common understanding of what happened during the focus period. (Page 12) ^690201907 - Facilitators work to ensure that blame is not apportioned to any one individual. (Page 12) ^690201908 - A Simple Framework (Page 12) ^690201909 - The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization [SENGE]. (Page 13) ^690201910 #further-reading - It is the job of the facilitator to remind participants that the simple retrospective framework is there for a reason. To get maximum effect from the retrospective, everyone should progress through the five phases at the same pace. (Page 15) ^690201911 - The Prime Directive states: ‘Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and (Page 15) ^690201912 - The Prime Directive states: ‘Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.’ (Page 15) ^690201913 - By ‘hostile’ environment, I mean one where protecting the status quo is valued more than seeking and implementing improvements. (Page 19) ^690201914 - Make sure that participants write using a marker pen instead of an ordinary ballpoint pen. Markers tend to have thicker tips and use more ink than their ballpoint alternatives, which significantly improves visibility, especially when participants are sitting across the room from each other, or from the wall where you intend to display activity output. (Page 23) ^690201915 - For the facilitator, colour coding is a useful tool to inspire further insights. Pick a colour scheme to accompany each of the themes that crop up in the activities, and keep colour usage consistent. (Page 26) ^690201916 - Taking photos is an effective way of capturing retrospective outputs and is much quicker than transcribing each and every word written up. (Page 27) ^690201917 - Place a pen in front of each chair, together with any materials you want participants to use to kickstart the first exercise. Distribute further materials for the next exercise as the retrospective progresses. (Page 28) ^690201918 - To prevent participants from getting distracted by what is coming, some facilitators cover pre-drawn charts with plain flip chart paper. (Page 29) ^690201919 - Combining the facilitator role with a leadership position is troublesome as it sends mixed signals to the group about what is acceptable. (Page 32) ^690201920 - Use a visual cue to distinguish your different roles of ‘facilitator’ and ‘participant’. (Page 32) ^690201921 - The retrospective is more fruitful when time is spent on the activities and then focusing participants back on the content. (Page 33) ^690201922 Confirm the agenda before the meeting. - If there are other people in your organisation already running retrospectives, ask another facilitator to observe your facilitation during the retrospective, and then share their feedback with you after the retrospective. It’s (Page 34) ^690201923 - If there are other people in your organisation already running retrospectives, ask another facilitator to observe your facilitation during the retrospective, and then share their feedback with you after the retrospective. (Page 34) ^690201924 - A fellow retrospective facilitator, Bas Vodde created a technique called the Plan of Action. The Plan of Action focuses people on the small incremental steps that can be made towards goals that are not easily solvable within a single iteration. (Page 35) ^690201925 - The Six Action Shoes[DEBON] framework comes from the book of the same name by lateral thinker Edward De Bono. (Page 35) ^690201926 - The six shoes are described below: Navy formal shoes - The military is renowned for formal, routine behaviour. Routines help us to repeat tasks efficiently. Grey sneakers - Sneakers are quiet and don’t attract attention. This shoe symbolises actions around exploration, investigation and collecting evidence or other information. Brown brogues - A classic shoe that symbolises pragmatic action; doing what can be done right now. Orange gumboots - Represents the fireman who deals with emergencies. Emergencies demand urgent, drastic action. Pink slippers - Representing comfort and cosiness, these symbolise compassionate actions involving human feelings and safety. Purple riding boots - Think of a general on horseback. Riding boots represent authority and so symbolise ‘Take charge’ actions associated with particular roles. (Page 36) ^690201927 - Try to avoid a situation where all actions are owned by one person, or by the people who usually take all the actions. Encourage everyone to take ownership of at least one action. (Page 36) ^690201928 - By inviting more participation you are really trying to facilitate ownership of the meeting by the team, and hopefully encourage more ownership of the actions by the end of the retrospective. (Page 41) ^690201929 - When you write up actions of what you hear, read it back to the group to confirm that you have interpreted it correctly. (Page 41) ^690201930 - You should be prepared to jump in quickly to protect the safety of the retrospective atmosphere, where you want people to talk openly about issues, and prevent blame. (Page 42) ^690201931 - Encourage the use of ‘I-language’ from participants, and help people to rephrase their statements if given in a blaming way. I-language focuses people on their own observations and experiences, helping to move away from labelling that may be interpreted as blame. (Page 42) ^690201932 - Another common facilitation technique is to use a Parking Lot, or a flip chart, to acknowledge topics but to park discussion until the end of the meeting, when you should revisit them and decide what to do. (Page 43) ^690201933 - Open Ended - Questions that cannot easily be answered with a ‘yes’ or ‘no’; these help draw further explanations out into the open. These questions often start with ‘How?’, ‘What?’ or ‘Why?’ (Page 44) ^690201934 - Probing - Much like open-ended questions, probing questions seek a greater response looking for much more detail. Probing questions might start with words like, ‘Describe’, ‘Tell’ or ‘Explain’. Redirecting - These questions reflect a statement back at the group; useful for ensuring equal participation amongst members. (Page 44) ^690201935 - Probing - Much like open-ended questions, probing questions seek a greater response looking for much more detail. Probing questions might start with words like, ‘Describe’, ‘Tell’ or ‘Explain’. (Page 44) ^690201936 - Redirecting - These questions reflect a statement back at the group; useful for ensuring equal participation amongst members. For example, ‘What do the rest of you think of…?’ or ‘Can others express their opinion of…?’ (Page 44) ^690201937 - Feedback and Clarification - These questions help to reinforce the current thread of talk and are useful before capturing the output on a flip chart. These might begin with, ‘Did I hear you correctly, and you just said…?’ or ‘Can someone offer a summary of our position?’ Close Ended - These are useful for bringing (Page 44) ^690201938 - Feedback and Clarification - These questions help to reinforce the current thread of talk and are useful before capturing the output on a flip chart. These might begin with, ‘Did I hear you correctly, and you just said…?’ or ‘Can someone offer a summary of our position?’ (Page 44) ^690201939 - Close Ended - These are useful for bringing closure to topics, and confirming the group’s thoughts after a team has had a longer discussion. ‘Does everyone better understand the background to…?’ or ‘Is everyone happy with this action?’ or ‘Should we move on to the next topic?’ (Page 44) ^690201940 - Experiment with your questioning style and read more about which questions to use when in other books on facilitation such as the Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making [KANER] (Page 45) ^690201941 #further-reading - To avoid a dip in energy levels due to digestion, avoid scheduling retrospectives after lunch. (Page 45) ^690201942 - Ensure your full attention and energy is present to serve the group, and that you show visible signs of engagement. (Page 46) ^690201943 - Keep the conversation as open as possible, setting an example by keeping your arms at your side, not crossed. Avoid putting hands in pockets, leaning or sitting. (Page 46) ^690201944 - Focus First on Building Relationships (Page 49) ^690201945 - Focus on activities that work to build relationships and connections between team members. (Page 49) ^690201946 - Invest in the first retrospective most of all and bring participants face-to-face. Organise a social event before or after the first retrospective to create and strengthen the relationships between members. (Page 50) ^690201947 - Use Video Cameras at All Ends (Page 50) ^690201948 - One thing that good facilitators do during distributed retrospectives is to regularly poll everyone for their opinion. The facilitator really emphasises the opinion of the remote participants to ensure that there is a fair amount of input. (Page 51) ^690201949 - Agree on a mechanism for participants to ‘signal’ when they want to speak to the other party. (Page 53) ^690201950 - Retrospective facilitator Ainsley Nies is known for her work on the Personal Retrospective format. I recommend her latest presentation, which is available online. (Page 63) ^690201951 #further-reading - A retrospective that focuses too quickly on deciding what to do often ends disastrously, with too many people suggesting different plans of action. (Page 75) ^690201952 - The most common reason behind this scenario is that the team doesn’t have a shared view of what happened. A focus on trying to ‘take action’ often means that everyone sees the problem or status quo differently. This basis means that people naturally have different suggestions to give because they are trying to solve different problems. (Page 75) ^690201953 - Retrospectives should provide a safe environment where everyone can be expected to contribute. Team members may see someone differently after listening to them share their part of the story, and perhaps gain a better understanding of someone’s motives. (Page 75) ^690201954 - ‘If you have a point of view to share, you should not be facilitating.’ (Page 76) ^690201955 - If you find yourself with too many goals, introduce a limit or a theme to the retrospective. (Page 78) ^690201956 - Work with the group to ensure that ownerships of actions are shared out evenly over a number of retrospectives. Assign two owners to work together on each action so more people are actively involved. Celebrate actions completed by new people at the start of the next retrospective in order to incentivise others to get involved. (Page 79) ^690201957