This is the first of a multi-part series on Agile Retrospectives with David Horowitz who’s the CEO of Retrium, a company that builds tools to help you facilitate remote retrospectives. The links to Retrium’s Retrospectives Academy below are affiliate links, if you prefer to follow a link that takes you to Retrium’s site, but does not give anything back to the podcast, you can. Just follow this link: Retrium.com. On the other hand, if you want to help us grow this podcast, you can follow the links below or this link to Retrium’s Retrospective’s Academy.
In the first installment of the Agile Retrospectives Masterclass with David Horowitz, we talk about the basic setup for a successful retrospective. It all starts with what David calls the triangle of success: People, Process/facilitation, and Follow-through.
How to set up your Agile Retrospectives for success with the right people
As Scrum Masters prepare their retrospectives, the people-side of the retrospective is going to be a major focus point. From selecting the right people to checking that the conditions are in place for those people to share freely what they think will enable the team to perform better.
We discuss tips on how to set up the retrospective so that everyone feels safe, and ready to share their questions, concerns, and insights.
Preparing your Agile Retrospective Facilitation to ensure success
Once we have the right people in the room, and we know they are ready to contribute actively to the improvement of the team, then the next side of the success triangle comes into play: facilitation.
Facilitation is not a new aspect for Scrum Masters, it is one of the core skill sets we develop in this role. However, the facilitation of an Agile Retrospective requires a level of facilitation skills that goes beyond the day-to-day work.
We discuss what those aspects are, and share a book to help you push those skills to the next level: the Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner et al.
Follow-through: the reason we have Agile Retrospectives
Once the retrospective finishes, the next most important action is to follow-through and ensure that the team takes ownership of their insights, and the action(s) they defined during the retrospective. There’s a risk that teams will feel de-motivated and discouraged to participate in the retrospectives if the results of those retrospectives are not put into practice.
Stay tuned for the second part of this Masterclass, coming soon!
About David Horowitz
David Horowitz is the CEO of Retrium, a platform for agile retrospectives that has powered over 100,000 retrospectives from thousands of companies across the world.
Prior to co-founding Retrium, David spent a decade at The World Bank as an engineer turned Agile coach.
He has degrees in Computer Science and Economics from The University of Maryland and a Master’s Degree in Technology Management from The Wharton School of Business.
Learn more about Better Retrospectives with David Horowitz by accessing the FREE Retrospective’s Academy by Retrium.
You can link with David Horowitz on LinkedIn and connect with David Horowitz on Twitter.
