RetroThemez: Making Your Retrospectives More Enjoyable
Retrospectives can be repetitive for well established agile teams, especially when you are in your 27th sprint (54 weeks). So it is important for the Scrum Master to come up with ideas to make these ceremonies which sometimes feel mundane and turn them into enjoyable sessions for the team to increase engagement and excitement.
This idea was given to me by a colleague of mine which allowed me to start thinking more creatively. In honour of me leaving the organisation she created a retrospective in theme of my new organisation. This was such an awesome spin on our existing retros I thought "why stop there?". So in collaboration with her we have started a collection of themed retrospectives for all teams to use and contribute to.
We call it "RetroThemez" and it can be found on github here.
https://github.com/cs91/RetroThemez
The flow of the retrospective follows the following structure:
This idea was given to me by a colleague of mine which allowed me to start thinking more creatively. In honour of me leaving the organisation she created a retrospective in theme of my new organisation. This was such an awesome spin on our existing retros I thought "why stop there?". So in collaboration with her we have started a collection of themed retrospectives for all teams to use and contribute to.
We call it "RetroThemez" and it can be found on github here.
https://github.com/cs91/RetroThemez
The flow of the retrospective follows the following structure:
- Team shout outs
- What went well?
- What needs improvement?
- How can we mitigate risk?
From these discussions the team then come up with:
- Action Items
- Themed Team NPS score
The idea is to allow teams to come up with their own themes, in any format they wish and be shared and distributed on RetroThemez for all to use. Teams can put what ever spin they prefer and share these with other Scrum Masters and Iteration Managers.
I believe the outcome of the retros have provided more engagement with our teams and has created a more exciting and collaborative environment where people are not afraid to contribute and express their thoughts on the previous sprint.
Give it a go and see if this brings a new found joy to your retrospectives and teams.
