At some point, most IT organizations decided to become Agile. Hence, they decided to implement the Scrum framework:). Many people dislike Scrum because it requires numerous meetings that seem for some people wasteful. However, one meeting proves essential: the Retrospective. Teams consistently undervalue and ignore this critical component.
It is one of the most important events that should happen in the software development lifecycle. This is true regardless of the methodology used.
The authors of the Agile Manifesto capture this idea perfectly. In the ‘Principles behind the Agile Manifesto,’ the final principle states:
At regular intervals, the team reflects on how
to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts
its behavior accordingly.
Feedback drives organizational growth
Organizational progress requires three steps: reflecting on the current software development process, coming to conclusions and implementing them. Implementation proves most challenging. People naturally resist change, despite countless books on organizational transformation.
With earlier quoted principle behind the Agile Manifesto, resonates well what Albert Einstein said:
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used to create them
As the quote says, if we don’t reflect on our actions, we will end up in an infinite loop. At first glance, we will think that the problem is solved. However, later it will turn out that we are back at the beginning. The same demons are back.
Of course, not reflecting on our actions does not always means we won’t succeed as an organization. It rather means that we will reach some limit to what we can achieve. At the same time, other organizations may outpace us and we will be left behind with our old ways of thinking. Competitors using modern practices may win our clients.
Therefore, having time when we can reflect and then implement changes is crucial for organizations to survive in such a dynamically changing world.
Regardless of the used methodology, within software development (it can be applied to any other type of product), we need to implement our customized version of retrospective. At first, we can follow a guide on how to do it but over time we should make adjustments so that it suits our environment and its resulting constraints.
Main factors of retrospective success
I have worked in many organizations where these three factors always had a big impact on retrospective quality:
Disclaimer before going further. In this article, I am touching only the surface of the retrospective and its surroundings. I won’t mention how we should run the retrospective and how to prepare yourself. I will cover these topics in the upcoming articles.
Dedicated time
As human beings, we like to complain. It is even better when the other person can share the same feelings and experience. We can start complaining together. Polish people could be the world champions in complaining. But what is worse, we like to do it but that is all. We don’t like to do something about it. The goal of the complaining game is not to improve our situation but rather share with others our feelings so that they would feel sorry for us. In most cases that would be the end of the story.
We can lie to ourselves that we have a feedback culture and everyone is so comfortable with giving and receiving feedback. There might be some exceptions. Nevertheless, reality is different. It is pretty rare that people would give someone truly constructive feedback. What is even more surprising there are even fewer people that would like to hear your feedback. Unless they have asked for it.
Hence, if we don’t dedicate some time for giving feedback then it is really unlikely people will do it proactively. Also, they would not drive the change to improve the current situation. We need to give people time and space for comfortably sharing their views.
Appropriate frequency
It is very hard to balance out what should be a frequency of the meetings. Two problems commonly emerge.
Weekly or biweekly retrospectives may occur too frequently. It could be the case that not much has happened within this period. Therefore, team members do not have much to bring to the table, leading to unproductive sessions.
Before making a decision to decrease frequency, reflect on why people do not have anything to share. In case If the reason is that the period between meetings is too short, we can make a decision to reduce frequency. After that, we may fall into the second case.
Human memory is not very reliable. Therefore, if the period between retrospectives is too long, people will just forget most of the information. Or they will remember something but vaguely. Hence, quality of the discussion will suffer. No one will be sure about situation and what actually happened.
It really varies between teams, even within the same organization. Because each team consists of different people so we can’t apply the same rules to all teams. You need to feel the room and determine for yourself how often retrospective should happen.
Serious commitment to outcomes
Long story short, if nothing happens after the retrospective why should people bother showing up? It is so common that we finish the meeting with actions that are never implemented. Some period passes. We check what the actions were from the last retrospective and it turns out nothing was done. The usual excuse is that people had different priorities. Okay, it can happen once in a while. There is nothing wrong with it. But we have to observe if it becomes a pattern. Once it becomes normal then participants will still attend but they won’t bother to be engaged since nothing will change.
The team has to take the outcomes/actions seriously after the retrospective and make sure actions will be completed before the next meeting.
Summary
Reflecting on our actions is undoubtedly important. Equally important is creating proper conditions for reflection. Dedicating time, adjusting frequency, and seriously addressing outcomes ensures successful retrospectives. However, these aren’t the only factors. Many other elements may contribute.
But now, it is time for you to reflect. Based on what was pointed out in the article. How does it look like in your organization? Is it a meeting for the sake of the meeting? Your team is not gaining any value out of it and you have a feeling it is meaningless?
If that is the case, feel free to contact me and we can collaborate to help your organization move forward.