Agile Retrospective: celebrating success (30 mins)

Working on a project or product can feel like a slog. Like it or not, whatever we do to clear blockers and spice things up, scrum can feel like an uphill struggle. We finish one sprint, and start a new one, taking another slice of stories from the unrelenting product backlog.

As Scrum Masters, it's part of our role to be unrelentingly positive and optimistic. To celebrate achievements and call out good practice. 

So, in this retrospective idea I'm suggesting something a little different. The idea is not to identify a way to improve. Unlike most retrospectives, the purpose of this retro is a mood booster. It gives your teams an opportunity to reflect on what they enjoy, what's going well, and what they've already achieved.


Setup

  • Create a 4x4 grid containing the quadrant titles "Achievements", "Teamwork", "Compliments" and "Things I've learned"
  • Around the grid, give everyone an individual table top with a pack of sticky notes
Running the retro

  • Ask everyone to capture their thoughts on sticky notes, capturing their reflections about the team's achievements, examples of good teamwork, compliments to other team members, and anything that they've learned since they've been on the project. Initially, ask everyone to keep their sticky notes on their personal table top.
  • Once everyone has had a chance to capture their thoughts on sticky notes, go around the team and ask everyone to talk through their sticky notes, moving them to the appropriate quadrant of the board one by one.
Outcome

It's very easy for scrum teams to fixate on what needs to be improved.When I've run this in the past, I've had team members say something like "It took me a while to think of things because I'm so used to thinking about what's wrong."

Sometimes, the best thing that we can improve is our mood. Especially when things are tough, or just after the Christmas break when motivation and energy levels are typically low.

Recognition can go a long way. This retrospective should leave teams with a better appreciation for how far they've come as a team, and with a sense of what everyone on the team has enjoyed and learned. Knowing that team mates are enjoying and learning things is often a catalyst for feeling more positive about things in general.

As Scrum Masters, we can also help reinforce and embed the positivity coming out of the retrospective by renewing our personal commitment to be positive, optimistic and taking special care of the next few sprints to call out good work and any examples of self-management by the team.

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