Killing the Retrospective Blues

One recurring problem that has been happening on my projects lately has been ineffective retrospectives. Usually we go around the table and air our grievances in a very festivus-like manner and the feedback has dragged on to the monotonous "I think everything went great this sprint" by each developer.

As I notice this happening, I began to encourage people to have "something negative" to say about the process with the understanding that our process isn't perfect and it's there for the team to mold and shape in a way that makes sense to them. I came to the (very late) realization that this is a pretty poor approach on many levels.

1. Going around the room is generally an ineffective way to get meaningful feedback. Since this is tedious, people feel the need to keep it short so we can just get it over with. 
2. Nudging people to say something critical about the process sends the wrong message to the team. In my experience, most developers are unlikely to volunteer anything critical for fear of upsetting anyone unnecessarily. It's not about being negative, it's about providing constructive criticism. Also good things can be mentioned and celebrated as well. The ScrumMaster needs to find a format that solicits the correct type of feedback in an engaging and constructive fashion.
3. In this format, you're unlikely to get a good list of improvements to make to your process. I'm pretty lucky these days to come away with one thing that we can change positively next sprint.

It's really not until writing this that I realized I have failed the team tremendously. Retrospective is designed to be a powerful tool for change and improvement to the development procedure. It is supposed to engage the team members to feel as owners of a living & breathing process. Meaningful adjustments should be identified every sprint and attempts should be made to instill these improvements the next time around. Simply going around the room and briefly talking about what transpired is a pretty awful attempt at this and we've been doing it wrong for so long. Ugh.

Coincidentally, I came across this blog post on ScrumAlliance.org about the very topic (written today to boot) where Marc Nazarian lays out a simple yet seemingly effective approach to turn the tables on retrospectives. The idea is to get people to write very succinct feedback onto cards, pass them to other team members who then try to describe the issues written down by their colleagues. This is interactive and serves as an entertaining way to get cross-functional teams to see the process through the eyes of another.

I recommend giving this post a read if you're like me and stuck on a retrospective process which is largely ineffective and tedious.

Thanks Marc!