Agile Retrospective: Starter Exercise (5 - 15 Minutes) - Mood by Masterpiece

Mood by Masterpiece

This is a starter exercise for an agile retrospective that will take 5 - 15 minutes depending on the size of your agile team.

It's a great, low-risk, abstract thinking exercise for getting team members talking at the start of a retrospective. It brings out different perspectives on how the team felt about the recent sprint, and builds a greater sense of empathy and understanding.

In the following example I used Miro which is a great collaboration tool for remote teams.


Setup:
  1. Select any six pieces of artwork
  2. Lay them out on a grid
  3. Give all team members a post-it note with their name on it

Running the exercise:

  1. Ask everyone to drag their post-it note to the piece of art that best encapsulates how they feel about the sprint that has just finished.
  2. Once everyone has placed their post-its, ask each member of the team to say just a sentence or two - doesn't have to be anything profound - about why they've chosen the piece of art that they have.

Outcome

Aside from nudging people towards talking more openly among their peers right at the start of the retro, the exercise helps team members reflect on the most recent sprint by taking into account each other's perspectives. 

It's also a nice exercise to just appreciate some nice artwork. I had one team member say they were going to go away and read up about each of the masterpieces. It's a bit off the wall too, which can help people open up. 

More Info

A retro should typically aim to get everyone to say something, even if it's only a few words, within the first ten minutes or so. If people don't say anything at the start of a session, they tend to feel like they have permission to remain silent. This limits engagement with the retrospective, and can prevent agile teams from being able to inspect and adapt.

By asking everyone to reflect on how they felt about the sprint in just a few words, it helps break the ice, increase involvement, and reduce the natural barriers many of us have about speaking in front of our peers.

There are lots of ideas for icebreakers out there. Personally, I like to choose something that doesn't involve people saying anything personal about themselves, or anything that's too gimmicky. If possible, I like to keep it focused on the sprint, scrum or agile related - but with a low contribution barrier. Since each member of the team has participated in the sprint, and since there is no right answer (each painting being a matter of interpretation), everyone should feel like they have something to say.

When I've run this exercise, the reasons people give for having chosen a particular piece of art range from the lighthearted to the serious, and from the abstract to the profound.

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