When I'm teaching about retrospectives, there has always been a challenge: a simulated retrospective wants a shared experience. But what shared experience to use?
- The one experience I know we share is the session we're in, but using a retrospective on the class sets up an awkward "meta" and recursive dynamic, as we try to do something and think about doing it at the same time.
- A class often shares another experience (or set of experiences): the projects they're working on. Everybody may not be on the same project, but even if they are, real projects have real issues, and using real issues for an example almost instantly violates safety and takes away the magic circle aspect where it's safe to try new behaviors.
So:
1. Identify a movie as the shared experience. I've been using Star Wars, Episode IV, with the part of the movie from the rescue of Leia until Obi-Wan dies and the protagonists escape. (Sorry if that's a spoiler:)
(I'm sure other well-known movies would work as well but I haven't tried any; perhaps The Wizard of Oz or The Godfather or something more modern?)
It's possible a person or two hasn't seen the movie; I'm willing to take that chance. If I thought the background of the group was so diverse that a substantial part of the group would not have a shared movie, I'd try a different approach.
2. Ask people to imagine they were the protagonists, to recollect for a moment what happened in the relevant part of the movie.
[A couple times I tried to show the movie clip in fast-forward. From a technology standpoint, it was painful. But from the perspective of the simulation, it's a better simulation NOT to show anything. As in real life, people will have different memories of what happened and different perceptions of what's important.]
3. Use the recalled scenes as the basis for a retrospective.
I like Esther Derby and Diana Larsen's approach in Agile Retrospectives, and I use an abbreviated sample exercise addressing each of their sections. For example:
A. Set the stage: Check-In – "In a word or two, what's on your mind?"
B. Gather data: Timeline – "Recall the memorable, meaningful, and/or significant events; write one per sticky note, then put it on the timeline."
C. Generate Insights – Patterns and Shifts – "Look for patterns. What links? What shifts? Which are most important?". Or perhaps do a "Worked Well / Do Differently" analysis.
D. Decide What to Do – Dot Voting – Give everybody 3 dots to vote for what to focus on as a group over the near term. (They can put their dots on 3 different things, or all on the same one if they feel strongly.) Agree on the immediate (concrete) next steps, who will lead them, and how and when progress will be reported.
E. Close the Retrospective – Appreciations – Identify how others have contributed. "Bob, I appreciate you for ___." ("Thank you.")
Even doing this in an abbreviated manner (a few minutes for each) lets you run through a complete retrospective in miniature.
You can then follow it up with some debriefing to bring out any points you need to make.
Source:
Bill Wake, 2010. [8/15/10 – Thanks to Diana Larsen for helping me ensure "Decide What to Do" results in action.]