How a Facilitator can Ensure Success in Your Retrospective

This is a part of a series that was cre­at­ed to help you get the prac­tice of ret­ro­spec­tives built into your com­pany.  This series will walk through the approach, nec­es­sary roles, in addi­tion to guides for each role to help your com­pany get started quickly.

Prior to Meetings

• Meet with teams to determine last day of iteration for upcoming events that would lend selves to retrospectives.
• Develop a calendar for retrospectives.
• Establish meeting purpose and goal.
• Invite all key participants.
• Develop agenda.
• Send meeting goal, agenda, and ground rules to all participants.
• Reserve and prepare room for the meeting (white board, computer screen, flip chart, whiteboard markers, index cards, sticky notes, cards).

During the Meeting

• Remind participants of ground rules.
• Review agenda.
• Conduct meeting
• 25% of time allotted: What went well during iteration we are reviewing?
• 25% of time allotted: What didn’t go well, and why
• 50% of time allotted: Identify and prioritize three items to improve

Post Meeting

• Summarize meeting
• Distribute meeting summary to all team members and executive team or sponsor
• Follow up to ensure improvement suggestions are being implemented

Next week, I will dis­cuss the importance of the facilitator’s role when planning and leading the retrospective.