I had no idea that retrospectives could be "open retrospectives" or "topic-specific retrospectives." This is a term that I discovered in my learning journey as a Scrum Master. I would let the reader decide whether they would like to describe Retro’s the way I am doing it right now or have some better options or suggestions.
I have helped multiple Scrum Teams spread across organisations. Every team is different, and some of these teams are challenging. Challenging teams can be exhausting, but these are the teams that push you towards learning, exploring, and improving as a Scrum Master, whereas supportive teams help boost confidence.
Asking for feedback from the team and sharing my observation with them at the end of the meeting have always been of great value.
One such sharing session led us to explore the option of conducting topic-specific Retrospectives.
Retrospective templates boost creative thinking, make us feel less stressed, and help increase efficiency. Still, one of my teams hates templates (PacMan,Team Radar,Hiking,Hot-air Ballon,Let's craft with shapes, Roses, Thorns, and Buds, Start, Stop, Continue), while the same templates were a huge success with my other teams. This particular team finds it difficult and feels that the context is missing. The discussions the team members have and the insights and experiences they offer will ultimately determine the context. The template is a placeholder that helps set the stage.
The team is interested in having a focused discussion about specific topics such as broken communication, the hero culture in the organisation, a lack of accountability, the ever-growing technical debt, and how the team uses JIRA. In my opinion, these topics should surface during the initial discussion at the Retrospectives and they need to build on them.
How did it all start?
During Retrospectives, I observed that there was less engagement. So at the end of one of the events, I shared my observation, which led to an interesting discussion. Few of the team members find it difficult to come up with relevant topics to improve on. They feel the conversations are hazy and cover a wide range of subjects, including inter-team dependencies, team disagreements, and JIRA-related issues. They find a lack of focus and an absence of productive discussion.
I have tried to coach the team that this is a safe place to mention all that they observed during the sprint. From all these topics, they need to decide what they would like to focus on to improve for the next sprint, and then have a detailed discussion only on that specific topic. To help the team identify the most important topic among all the identified topics voting is a preferred way. This strategy doesn’t sit well with the team.
After having a conversation, we concluded that two days prior to the Retrospective the team would share valuable topics to discuss during the meeting. Every team member can suggest topics or vote on the topics that have already been suggested by others. Based on the outcome, the topic for the upcoming Retrospective will be finalised.This is very similar to what we were trying to achieve using the templates. But this way, the team could have an idea of the topic in advance. They could think it through before coming to the meeting. This particular team didn’t appreciate being put on the spot.
What I realised was that the team was still following a similar pattern, but because the discussion was async, there was less time pressure. This way, they got to decide on the topic beforehand and spend those 45–60 minutes having a focused discussion.
The various topic that got shortlisted for Retrospective
The topics marked in bold were voted for discussion during the last 3 Retrospectives
What mindset should we adopt for improving refinement? How to improve stakeholder engagement a̶t̶ ̶R̶e̶v̶i̶e̶w̶s̶? (they optimised the topic further during the Retrospective) JIRA-What should the backlog look like? More decisions less accountability The HERO culture in the organisation and how does it affect the team? The team is always short of team members? The ever increasing technical debt?
The positive aspects of TSR (topic-specific retro’s)
The team feels more involved in deciding the Retrospective topics.
They come prepared, which helps in utilising the time better.
The team gets to discuss async what can be the next important topic for the Retrospective.
There is more focus.
The negative aspects of TSR
The surprise element is lost. Everyone comes with a plan in mind and spontaneity goes missing.
Every Retrospective the team tries to solve a problem and creates a list of action items. Too many decisions are taken.
The team member only gets to share the topic but the opportunity to share the incident and experience is lost.
I am still exploring how to balance between Open and Topic-specific Retrospectives to give the team the opportunity to have focused discussion but also allow them to be spontaneous.
What kind of Retrospectives will you prefer?
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