Agile Retrospective: Starter exercise (5 - 15 minutes) - if we were in a film...

If we were in a film...

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, fun, low-risk exercise for getting team members talking at the start of a retrospective. It brings out different perspectives on how the team feel about the project as a whole and builds a greater sense of team empathy and cohesion. 

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


Setup:
  1. Create a grid, with a space for each team member
  2. Give each team member two post-it notes (one to write the name of the film, the other to write a brief summary)
  3. Optional: give team members access to the board a few days in advance so they have time to think abut it
Running the exercise:

  1. Ask everyone to write on their first post-it note the name of a film that most reminds them of what it has been like to work on the over the past sprint (or x number of sprint, or project as a whole)
  2. Ask everyone to write a brief summary explaining their choice on another post-it note
  3. Once everyone has an answer, ask everyone to say a few words about their choice

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 in a fun way. 

It's also a nice exercise to just appreciate different people's film knowledge. When I ran this exercise there was even a film that'd I'd never heard of... so its a good conversation starter for teams. 

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