Everyone's Perspective Is Key In Retrospectives

#SridharPeddisetty #Agile #Scrum #Retrospection #Project #Retrospective #Management #BestPractices #ProcessImprovement  

In the early 20th century, an Architect and an Engineer entered a fancy hotel with a roll of blueprints to investigate how to add an elevator to the building. As they were measuring and planning where to knock holes in walls, the Janitor walked up and asked what they were doing. They told him that they would be installing a new elevator in the building. The Janitor quipped, "That's gonna make quite a mess."  Both the Architect and the Engineer assured the Janitor that he would get help cleaning up after they were finished. The Janitor scoffed: "I don't know why you want to go through all that trouble. If it were me I'd put the elevator on the outside of the building and save the fuss." The Engineer looked at the Architect and they were dumbstruck--and the elevator on the outside of a building was born.

Introduction

People with a different perspective can come up with some incredible ideas. Above is an example of an incredible idea, which goes to show that everyone’s inputs are equally important. Even though most of us understand this well, sometimes during retrospective meetings, the Scrum Master or Facilitator fails to have all participants share their thoughts. Not everyone in the team is an extrovert or feels secure enough to share individual opinions in front of others. So the onus lies on the Facilitator of the retrospective meeting to ensure everyone’s perspective is taken. 

Tips on taking everyone’s perspective in retrospectives

Below are 5 tips on how to take everyone’s perspective in a retrospective meeting

Tip#1: Ensure a comfortable setup

Whether doing retrospective with co-located team or a remote team, it’s important to have a meeting setup, which instills comfort for the participants. Personally, I have seen retrospectives done over video conference where some participants are not visible on the screen, which makes it uncomfortable for some to speak while not being visible. Ideally, retrospectives should not include anyone who is not going to contribute. Some members could possibly feel uncomfortable speaking in front of an audience who are not part of the team or does not have anything to contribute in the meeting. 

Tip#2: Share all relevant data ahead of time

Provide an opportunity for participants to be prepared for the retrospective meeting. Normally the tool provides visibility of the goals for a sprint or a release and the actual deliveries. It helps to summarize what was planned, what was achieved and other relevant details in the agenda so that the participants can come prepared with their thoughts to share. It also helps to share the status on action items ahead of time and what has been accomplishment in terms of continuous improvement from the lessons learned from the past retrospective meetings. 

Tip#3: Encourage participants to share thoughts without interruption 

We understand that not all technically skilled resources have good soft skills and some struggle to take time to explain their view point. It’s important to time box but at the same time a good Facilitator understands how to encourage participants to share their perspective. A Facilitator can ensure that someone is actively taking notes for future reference as needed. The Facilitator can also help in ensuring that technical details are understood by the non-technical participants. 

Tip#4: Facilitator should be unbiased  

The Facilitator should direct the conversations to encourage participants remain focused on the objective of the retrospective and ensuring that thoughts are challenged as needed and not the people. No side conversations or comments should be encouraged while a participant is sharing thoughts. The Facilitator should ensure that participants’ thoughts are respected and people can disagree without being disagreeable. 

Tip#5: Encourage consensus on action items

The Facilitator should ensure that there is a consensus on actionable items and identify the owner of the respective action item before wrapping up the meeting. Having a consensus encourages participants to think for themselves as a team. The Facilitator should also summarize main points discussed in the meeting and later follow up with an email or publish in a tool including meeting minutes. 

Summary

The best teamwork comes from the team members who are working independently but toward one goal in unison and working in an environment where everyone’s perspective is encouraged, heard and respected. 

Previous posts you might be interested in

• Active Listening Is Key For A Successful Delivery
• 5 Reasons To Let Your Team Struggle Today
• 20 Guidelines For A Productive Meeting

Everyone's Perspective Is Key In Retrospectives was originally published under Prokarma blog on Oct 26th 2015

20 Guidelines for a Productive Meeting

20 Guidelines for a Productive Meeting blog post originally appeared on Prokarma Blog

Sometime back Verizon commissioned the Meetings in America study to gain a better understanding of meeting trends and the needs of its customers. Study provides some very good insights on how meetings are perceived and includes interesting stats such as:

• 91% of professionals admit to daydreaming in meetings, 
• 95% say they miss either all or part of meetings, 
• 75% say they bring other work to meetings and 
• 39% say they have actually dozed off during a meeting
• 92% on the positive side, value meetings as providing an opportunity to contribute, suggesting that successful meetings may be a contributing factor to employee job satisfaction.

Even though above study seems specific to United States, it applies globally as well. To have a productive meeting, consider the following guidelines.

1. Define purpose of the meeting 
2. Consider who needs to be invited
3. Email goal(s) wise agenda well in advance
4. Arrive 5 minutes early for the meeting 
5. Start and end meeting on time
6. Come prepared for the meeting especially if you are the host 
7. Take notes or identify someone to take notes 
8. Set expectations to switch off or keep smartphones on mute during the meeting
9. Share all relevant data for the meeting ahead of time
10. Be brief and concise during the course of the meeting 
11. Encourage participants to share their thoughts without interruption 
12. Encourage everyone to participate in the meeting
13. Respect people’s thoughts so if needed, disagree without being disagreeable 
14. Direct the conversations to encourage participants remain focused on topic(s)
15. Silence is perceived as an agreement when an opinion is needed
16. No side conversations or comments should be encouraged 
17. Challenge ideas rather than people 
18. Agree on actionable items before wrapping up the meeting
19. Summarize main points discussed in the meeting and
20. Follow up with an email including minutes of meeting 

How To Run An Effective Meeting

How To Run An Effective Meeting