Scrum is all about inspecting and adapting so it’s important to make time to reflect with the team and gain insights on what can be improved. Regular retrospectives are a good way to get the team in the habit of looking at what they did and how they can improve. Here are seven strategies for effective retrospectives.
1. Look for small improvements
Organizations tend to be either very resistant to change or try to make too many changes at the same time. Organizational change happens most rapidly and easily through baby steps and making small improvements. If you strive for just a 2% improvement every few weeks you’ll have at 50% improvement at the end of a year. Small improvements tend to be easier to adopt, and they compound!
2. Blame process not people
A big part of the Agile mindset is taking responsibility for our productivity and the quality of our work. When things break down it’s typically not intentional, and blaming people often makes matters worse. Instead, look for flaws in the process that allowed this problem to happen in the first place. This takes the pressure off people so those closest to the issue can focus on finding ways of preventing this type of issue from happening again.
3. Practice the five whys
Often, the presenting problem is not the real issue, it’s just a symptom of a different and possibly more far reaching problem. One technique for finding the real root cause of a problem is called the “five whys”. When faced with a problem ask why it happened, or what caused it to happen, and with that answer ask why that happened, and so on until you’ve asked “why” at least five times. After about the fourth “why” you’ll often start to discover some interesting problems you may not have been aware of.
4. Address root causes
Once the root cause, the real issue, is understood it can and should be addressed. Addressing the root cause of a problem is often easier than addressing the symptoms, and can really deal with the issue instead of being a Band-Aid solution that can cause the problem to show up again in a different form.
5. Listen to everyone
Retrospectives should engage everyone on the team. Don’t just let the most vocal team members get all the say, solicit opinions from everyone and give everyone actionable objectives for making small improvements. Constant improvement is everyone’s responsibility.
6. Empower people
Give people what they need to make improvements. Demonstrate to people that you are serious about continuous improvement and support them in making changes. If people fear making changes it’s generally because they feel unsupported. Show them that you encourage and reward this kind of initiative.
7. Measure progress
It’s not enough to set a goal for improvement. You have to have a measurable outcome that everyone can strive for and then regularly measure progress toward that outcome. This takes an idea out of the conceptual and into the practical, making it real for people. When people can see progress toward a goal they’re more apt to strive for it.
Retrospectives are a key part of the Scrum process for supporting continuous improvement. Your process doesn’t have to be perfect but when flaws are detected and ways of improving are found then they must be encouraged and supported. The people on the front line doing the work are most likely to see ways of improving it. In Japan, when workers are encouraged to “stop the line” to make improvements, the whole process can get better.
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