To stay competitive, businesses today must change and conform to the latest standards

on a nearly real-time basis.

This calls for increased focus on developing and establishing the traits of flexibility and
adaptability into all levels of the workforce hierarchy. As an emerging leader, the
responsibility of cultivating these two traits often falls on your shoulders.
Adaptability and flexibility: A quick refresher
At this point in your career, being offered insight into what adaptability entails might
seem superfluous. However, even experienced leaders can overlook important nuances
that come with adaptability and need a refresher from time to time.
In the business sense of the word, adaptability entails being open to new ideas and
concepts, being able to work on an independent basis or with a team as the situation
demands, and juggling multiple projects without getting flummoxed when conditions
abruptly change. The ability or degree of willingness to which one adapts in such
situations essentially determines ones level of flexibility and possibly the heights they
will achieve in the future.
With a basic refresher under your belt, lets move on to building your workforce. Here
well take a look at four skills to nurture as you embark on developing your teams ability
to adapt:
1. Think creatively
Your team should be encouraged to explore different avenues for fostering creativity and
accomplishing work goals with a new mindset. Those who tend to stick to the same
tried-and-true methods are likely to have decreased flexibility and will resist change. Be
prepared to give your team a little extra effort.
2. Embrace ambiguity
It is key for companies to encourage an environment where change is embraced, even
when ambiguity is involved. Traditionally, companies tend to cut down on innovation
when uncertainty is present; instead, it needs to be welcomed. A conscious effort should
be made to maintain a positive mindset and to come up with new ways of seeing and
doing things.
3. Exercise emotional intelligence
A much-discussed focus of self-management skills courses, particularly those offered in
graduate business programs, emotional intelligence means controlling and filtering
ones emotions in a constructive manner. This leads to easier adaptation when working
with new teams and developing a better rapport with colleagues.
4. Shift focus

The ability to maintain or shift focus in accordance with an organizations changing

priorities is another critical skill that indicates higher levels of adaptability and
flexibility in employees. Those who maintain consistent focus on individual- and teambased operational goals while using creative and critical thinking processes to solve
challenges are critical in a dynamic environment.
These are some of the top elements for building a workforce that is adaptable and
flexible.
As an emerging leader, likely you are aware of them on a subconscious level and employ
them personally. However, when you're ready to nurture these traits at an
organizational level, be sure to outline your approach properly and form a quantitative
plan to increase change tolerance levels in your company.
Like a workout at the gym, theres a right way and a wrong way to build flexibility, and a
careful plan is always the right way.
Simon T. Bailey is CEO of Brilliance Institute, which consults with individuals and
organizations. He is the former sales director of the Disney Institute and author of the
new book "Shift Your Brilliance Harness the Power of You, Inc.," the sequel to his
bestseller "Release Your Brilliance."

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Flexibility and Adaptability

What is adaptability?

What is flexibility?

Impairments that may impact on the ability to be flexible

Inclusive strategies

Assessment

Other employability skills affected by flexibility

Resources/references

What is adaptability?
Adaptability means being flexible when things change. An adaptable person is one who is open to new
ideas and concepts, to working independently or as part of a team, and to carrying out multiple tasks
or projects. Someone is regarded as adaptable if they are able to manage multiple assignments and
tasks, set priorities, and adapt to changing conditions and/or work assignments.

What is flexibility?
An agile mindset allows us to evaluate and then adjust to the different roles, responsibilities and jobs
that we have each day. Adopting a flexible approach to study, work and life is more likely to enable us
to achieve success than maintaining a rigid outlook or set of beliefs. People who are flexible are open
to change and are able to adapt and adjust continuously to changing circumstances. Mental agility of
this kind enables us to be more effective as problem solvers and problem finders - flexibility and
creativity often go hand in hand.
Flexibility is extremely important for negotiating and communicating. The ability to acknowledge
anothers point of view, and perhaps modify ones own accordingly, is essential for effective teamwork.
As the term suggests, the ability to adopt a flexible approach is not static, it fluctuates according to
mood and the circumstances that we find ourselves in. We can enhance our flexibility by deliberately
adopting some of the following strategies:

Changing the context;

Trying something new;

Questioning our thoughts and words;

Planning to be spontaneous;

Deliberately trying to think in different ways.

Limited flexibility may cause difficulties with the following:

Solving problems creatively and adapting to novel situations or dynamic/changing situations;

Dealing with uncertain, unanticipated or unpredictable work situations;

Learning new tasks, technologies, and procedures;

Interpersonal adaptability: for example adapting interpersonal behaviour to work effectively

with a new team;

Cultural adaptability which requires the ability to perform effectively in different cultures and
environments;

Demonstrating physically oriented adaptability which involves adapting to various physical

factors such heat, noise, uncomfortable climates, and difficult environments.
Back to top

Impairments that may impact on flexibility include the following:

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

Mental Health Difficulties (MHDs)

Although most people depend on flexibility for adaptability skills, this does not mean that
people who have difficulty being flexible cannot possess the skill; rather, they may need
reasonable adjustments to practice to enable them to develop or evidence the skill.

Inclusive strategies

The experience and characteristics of different impairments/conditions are highly variable

between individuals. For this reason it is really important that you never make assumptions
about what a person can or cannot do. Though someone may have significant difficulties,
they may also have devised sophisticated means of compensating for these, so talk to the
person concerned and make judgements only on an individual basis.

Create an atmosphere that

is open, supportive and
welcoming of new ideas.

Help each individual to feel

that they are valued
members of a community.

Encourage risk taking

together with risk
management.

Some people (for example,

those with autism) rely
heavily on routines as a
source of security and
comfort and dislike sudden change. Let people know well in advance about changes to routines
in order to let them adjust to the idea and to avoid upsetting them.

For those who have difficulty focusing on appropriate detail or who are easily distracted,
provide a working environment that is not too busy, e.g. by screening off desk space.

Some people with Mental Health Difficulties may be affected by prescribed medication which
can affect concentration or make them feel excessively tired; they may need more time and
support to adjust to changing situations.

People with autism frequently demonstrate misunderstanding or naivety within social

interactions and may have difficulty interacting with their peers and teachers/trainers. Provide
these individuals with clear routines and written guidance on procedures.

One in four people in the UK experience Mental Health Difficulties at some point in their lives
do not write someone off because they happen to be ill at this time.

Depression, stress and anxiety are the most common types of mental illness. It is common for
people with these feelings to lack confidence and have low self-esteem despite having the
same full range of intellectual abilities as the population as a whole.

Maximise opportunities for success by assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too
difficult.

Encourage individuals to find strategies that work best for them and enable them to become
independent in their learning or work.

Ensure that the individual knows who they should speak with within the organisation for more
support.

Back to top

Assessment
Remember that people with the same impairments may need different adjustments to practice to
enable them to engage with the assessment process and demonstrate their learning.
When assessing your learners, be very clear about exactly what it is you are testing. For example, in
asking learners to write an essay in an exam, are you testing the learners knowledge and
understanding of the topic, or the ability to write clearly and precisely? Decide what you are assessing,
how many marks are apportioned for each element (knowledge or good writing, memory or
understanding), and ensure that students are clear about these criteria.
Consider why you are assessing in a particular way and whether or not another method may be more
inclusive. In some cases, the exact format of the assessment is critical to the demonstration of the
intended learning outcome (for example, a course in hairdressing would require a practical
demonstration of competence), but aim to allow your learners to have a choice about how they
demonstrate their knowledge and skills whenever possible; in other words allow them to demonstrate
their knowledge and skills using a variety of formats.
There may be occasions where you have provided the disabled learner with an alternative assessment
(for example, a blind learner may need to give their answers orally rather than in writing). In such
cases, you should ensure the integrity of the alternative assessment and make sure that the disabled
learner is judged on their ability to meet the criteria providing neither a disadvantage nor an
advantage over other learners.
In addition to adaptability, limited flexibility is likely to affect the following:

Teamwork

Problem Solving

Work Under Pressure

Resources/references
Adaptability in the Workplace : Development of a Taxonomy of Adaptive Performance:
Pulakos, D. et al:
Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health (CEIMH): This website provides a variety of
high quality, freely available, flexible, teaching and learning resources that have been developed
through CEIMH sponsored projects.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Adaptability. The ability to change (or be changed) to fit changed

circumstances.
Otherwise known as the key to success at work!
Being adaptable is a timelessly important skill, yet my college professors never
emphasized its importance. Things are always changing at work the economy
is up and down, new competitors are popping up out of nowhere, coworkers
come and go, and priorities shift. If you can whether the storm of changes and
manage to continue producing solid work, you will prove your worth 10 times
over as an employee.
Changing to Manage Processes
In my first job, the company changed processes quite often. Growing pains,
employee turnover, and a host of other factors caused the changes in
processes, but at the end of the day, I had to manage myself through the
changes rather than preventing them. Changing systems can be incredibly
frustrating. Just when you get in the swing of doing things one way, your
manager asks you to do it differently.
If your company, too, changes processes often, try keeping a log of how
management is asking for a certain task to be done. It will keep you on track to
make sure youre doing it right. Also, (after giving it due time!) if you notice a
particular change makes things less efficient, document a specific example of
how, and find an appropriate time to inform management. Your boss will almost
always be glad to listen to your input if you bring a solution to the table with
you that is low effort and that you (not your manager) can lead. Be careful not
to complain, but instead focus on increasing productivity.
One thing I didnt realize until working at my first job out of college is that no
company ever has the perfect system. Most companies (even the established
ones!) figure things out by trial and error. Instead of getting frustrated about
yet another company change, however big or small, think of it as a learning
experience and as an opportunity for your voice to be heard by presenting

solutions. For example, when I was in charge of our company email blasts to
clients, I found that our new process was overly time consuming and there
were several formatting issues using the suggested template. Rather than get
frustrated about the process, I did a little research and presented a solution to
my boss to have customizable company branded templates created. Although
there was a production charge for the templates, I was able to show that the
reduction in time for each email blast, in addition to having a more
professional-looking template, offset the cost to have them created.
Changing to Manage People
Above and beyond being adaptable to company changes, its also important to
be able to do things a little differently depending on who youre working with.
Taking the time to learn how people like to work, and modifying your work
style to accommodate them, makes a world of difference. Some people are
auditory learners and prefer discussions while others are very visual and
need powerpoint. Some managers are hands-off as long as you get your work
done while others are hands on and want a daily report. You will find some
colleagues respond better when you speak to them face-to-face while others
prefer email communication.
Whether its using a table in word instead of a spreadsheet in excel, small
changes make a big difference. I had one manager who hated opening
attachments on her phone and could never figure out how. This made it tough
for her to get to information quickly and she became frustrated with me
whenever I sent an email, regardless of the content of what I sent. Just the
small change of pasting the text of a document into the body of an email
rather than including it as an attachment for her when she was working from
the road made all the difference.
Knowing how your colleagues operate can save you a lot of time and
frustration. Bringing apositive attitude to work and learning to change to others
(vs. expecting them to change to your needs) is a surefire way to make yourself
into a good team player. Know what your end goal is, and be ready to work
with your peers to get there in the way that works best for everyone.
Think of each adaption big or small as practice to become a great manager
yourself someday. Things come up, and your ability to conquer the day and nail
your presentation, no matter how difficult your team seemed at the beginning,
will always put you on top.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

RETROSPECTIVA

For a while we (Paulo Caroli and TC Caetano) have been cataloguing

many ideas and activities for retrospectives. Weve created a 7-step
agenda with steps and activities to help you to structure your next
retrospective.

Agenda structure:
1. Setting the context
Setting the context at the beginning of any meeting is the first step
you can take to ensure that the meeting is effective. Participants
need to understand what the focus of the meeting is.
You can start the meeting either with a pre-defined context, or you
can define it real-time with the participants (So, what is the context
for this retrospective?).

Below are some sample contexts:

This retrospective is a bi-weekly recurring Scrum retrospective

for the ABC team. We are on Sprint 12 out of 30.

In 14 days, our artifact should reach the main production

stage.

Feature XYZ exploded in production, bringing the servers

down for 2 hours until sys-admin could bring the older version
back up.

This team will work together in a new project starting today.

We have worked together in the past year. We will be working

together for another year to come.

2. Prime Directive
In Project Retrospectives, Kerth introduced the Prime Directive; a
statement intended to help set the stage for the retrospective. The
Prime Directive states: Regardless of what we discover, we
understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or
she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and
abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand. The
statement is invaluable to set the tone for the meeting.
3. Energizer
The Energizer is an optional activity that can be run to warm up
the team and promote group interaction. It is a good meeting starter
for any team meeting, and is especially valuable for early stages of
team building.
You should select an icebreaker activity to best suit your teams
dynamics. When building teams, we recommend activities that focus

on sharing information, such as names and hobbies. Icebreakers can

also be used before any meeting, to invigorate the participants and
make them feel more engaged.
This kind of activity helps to create a friendly environment and
makes people more comfortable to participate in the activities that
will follow.
Check out some suggestions for Energizer activities.
4. Check-in
Check-in activities gather information such as gauging the
participants frame of mind and how they feel about the given
context. It is a good next step after setting the context and reading
the prime directive, especially as it narrows down the themes that
will be discussed later.
Another benefit of doing a check-in is that it helps people to put
aside their concerns and then focus on the meeting at hand.
Depending on the activity, it also helps if participants put aside their
judgments at least for the duration of the meeting. These are
usually short activities. Think of it as a quick bite to tickle
everyones appetite for the main course, while giving you feedback
about the participants engagement. Check out further Check-in
Activities here
5. Main course
The main course is the core of a meeting that seeks to foster
continuous improvement. It is composed of one or more activities,
and is also the time for the team to discuss their notes.

The main course activities are used to gather data, check on the
teams morale, talk about the positive stuff, recognize people, and
seek improvements. They drive the team to reflect about the given
context, reinforce a shared vision and generate insights. The main
course is the time for team members to feel heard. Each and every
individual note is acknowledged and is visible to the whole team.
Teams that have retrospectives as a recurring meeting will typically
look for main course alternatives. By varying the activity, the team
can look at different angles and perspectives, therefore generating
new insights.
Choose your main course wisely, with the participants and purpose
in mind. This is the main activity of your meeting, and in all
likelihood, the information gathered and discussed will set the tone
for continuous improvement.
6. Filtering
After the main course, you will have a lot of data in front of you. It is
important to have well-defined criteria to decide what will be
discussed. Given the meetings limited time, it is possible that topics
will be left out of the discussion.
Some activities might help you to define your filtering criteria. For
example, the team may group notes based on similarity and then
discuss the identified clusters. Another possibility is to vote, and
then focus on the most-voted topics. We've listed some more
Filtering Activities here.
7. Next steps

The meeting is almost over. The team had a great discussion and
generated many insights. Perhaps the activities have resulted in a
few actionable items. This list of next steps is the last step in our
meeting agenda. There are no formulae or specific activities for it.
We recommend that the whole group talk openly about whats next
for the team. What will they do with the findings from the meeting?
A few examples are to include new items to the teams backlog of
work, email the meeting notes to the team, schedule (or remind
everyone about) the next meeting.
Check out further resources for your Agile project management,
tracking and planning needs

Effective Retrospectives
Promoting Continuous Improvement of Agile Teams
by Kendrick Burson

One of our readers asked a very intelligent question:

How to get Optimal Value of a Retrospective ?

Is there a set of best practices that we can adopt when conducting team retrospectives?
I am used to facilitating a retrospectives, focusing on what went well, what went less well, what improved
and what can we improve.
Is there better facilitating method in getting teams to open out more ?

I wish more scrum masters and servant leaders would ask these very same questions. All too often I
see teams going thru the motions of team retrospectives while completely missing the point. The
retrospective is not a free meeting where the team simply bitch and gripe, or pat themselves on the back.
Although these are elements of every retrospective they are definitely not the focus or purpose.
If you want a complete understanding of Team Retrospectives with plenty of examples of different patterns
for facilitating this meeting read the book by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen titled Agile
Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. This book, along with many other resources, are
listed at the end of this article.

How to get Optimal Value of a Retrospective Part I

The idea of the retrospective, defined in both eXtreme Programming principles and the Scrum
Framework, is that it is a window for teams to inspect and adapt, to learn about what works and what does
not work, and to find better ways of working together and with their product owner, ever striving
towards the lean principle of kaizen (continuous improvement). For this to occur the team must keep
these primary goals in mind:
1.Open and Honest Communication
2.Group Understanding
3.Executable Action Items
The last of which is the defined deliverable for the retrospective, the Executable Action Items. Without this
you are simply clearing the air, either griping or congratulating without point or purpose. This artifact is the
ultimate output of the retrospective meeting, a ratified plan on what elements of a teams working
environment or practices to change in order to improve performance over past iterations.

The Executable Action Items are a very short check list or todo list of suggested ideas, also known as
experiments, for improving the performance of the team. This list is derived from a subset of all the issues
discovered in the retrospective meeting. The list of open issues are scoped down to a short list of high
priority items, less
than 3, that the
team wants to
address in the
next iteration.
I call these
Executable Action
Items because
each item should
require some
action by the
team, should be
executable,
measurable and
demonstrable. Sometimes this is as simple as modifying the existing team agreements. Sometimes this
requires a change in practices. Sometimes this requires new patterns of collaboration with external
sources such as the Product Owner, or external teams like IT, or Release Management.
Every retrospective should produce one or more clear Executable Action Items that are sourced from the
team, agreed upon by the team, and most of all committed to execution by the team. This artifact should
be recorded for historical reference on a wiki or other shared resource, as well as on a Big Visible Chart in
the team room or work area.
This BVC should be referenced every day during team standups to verify the team is consistently working
towards improving their processes and working habits.
So, to answer the first part of our readers question, the answer is to make sure you generate a short list of
Executable Action Items as your retrospective artifact, post it as a BVC in the team area for all to see and
record it on a team wiki for historical reference.

Successful Retrospective Facilitation Part II

The second part of the question posed by our reader is more difficult to explain briefly as it involves how
to plan and facilitate the retrospective meeting.
There are literally thousands of blog posts and publications on Agile Retrospectives. When I did a search
on google I found 165,000 hits; a staggering number to sift through. Fortunately there are a few clear
winners in this field. As mentioned above, the primary resource for learning about effective retrospectives
is the book by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, with additional information on each of their blogs. These
authors are known in project management circles as the Retrospective Queens. For every

manager, scrum master or otherwise servant leader of Agile Delivery Teams, this book is a must read.
Although this is not the first book written on Retrospectives, nor is it the last, it has become a standard
that many refer to.
Today my favorite resource for all things on Retrospectives is the Agile Retrospective Wiki. This site is full
of collections of ideas from the best in the industry. Many of the entries on this site also appear in Esther
& Dianas book. This site is a growing collection of patterns, tools and ideas for giving powerful, fun and
successful retrospectives.
Esther & Dianas book outlines a 5 step plan for organizing and facilitiating successful retrospectives.
Most of the industry is in agreement and has adopted this strategy. The 5 steps are:
1. Set the Stage
2. Gather Data
3. Generate Insights
4. Decide What to Do
5. Close the Retrospective
Some facilitators try to take a shorthand approach to their retrospectives, skipping step 1: Set the Stage,
heading straight into a round robin style inquiry of the team to gather data. While this might work with very
small teams that have been working well together for a very long time, it has a number of drawbacks.
It is important to remember that the 5 step plan given above was honed after many years of both failed
and successful retrospectives, and post mortem meetings, by professionals throughout the industry. From
their collective wisdom we learn that the most successful retrospectives all follow a similar pattern. Unless
you are a seasoned facilitator and have lead many successful retrospectives then it is not recommended
to stray from this guideline. On the other hand if you find something that works well for your team then I
encourage you to share that pattern with others, post a note to Esther or Diana, or on the Agile
Retrospective Wiki.

Step 1: Set the Stage

The first step, Set the Stage helps to focus the team on the task at hand, group learning, open and honest
communication. As a developer, having participated in many retrospectives, I remember attending more
than one as a prisoner. My mind was focused on the bug or technical challenge that prevented us from
delivering a story for the sprint. I did not want to sit and talk about feelings, I wanted to get something
done.
A good facilitator will always have a retrospective plan in mind and come to the meeting prepared. Setting
the stage helps to break us out of our mental thought patterns and re-focus our energies on the purpose

of having a retrospective, kaizen . Dont skip step one, it is there to help you get the most out of your
retrospectives.
To set the stage the facilitator wants to thank all the participants for showing up, having an open mind and
willingness to work together to help improve the teams overall performance. They will need to introduce
their plan for the retrospective meeting giving the agenda and a rough outline of the timeline. Next they
should elicit some form of verbal response from every team member, whether it is simply stating their
name, or a word game where each member defines their current state, or their perception of the sprint
events in a word or two. Getting this verbal exercise out of each and every team member is a way of
changing their state and informing
their body that actual physical
participation will be required.
The facilitator should then review
the teams working agreements to
remind the team and to establish a
safety zone for the retrospective
meeting. Remember, little value will
come from a hostile environment.
Every member of the team should
be safe and empowered to speak
honestly about every aspect of
working with the team, the scrum
master and the product
owner for the past sprint. No judegement shall ocurr for anything said within the meeting: Everything
discussed within the retrospective boundaries is with the spirit of open and honest communication for
enhanced collaboration.
Finally the facilitator will want to lead the participants in a trip down memory lane eliciting brief synopsis of
the events over the past sprint from the teams memory. This frames the meeting scope and reminds all
participants of what happened during their sprint, good, bad and ugly.
Opening the meeting and setting the stage in this way helps the participants to refocus on the task at
hand, remember what happened and what was important, and more importantly be present and available
for participation in the group exercises.
The resources listed below define many patterns and games you can use for each step, mix it up, try them
all, have fun.

Step 2: Gather Data

The next step in the 5 step plan is to gather data. This is a tricky step to have successful participation by
all members of the team. Over time many different patterns have emerged from leaders in the industry on

how to best encourage full participation, some are in the book by Derby & Larsen, and many more are
found on websites such as the Agile Retrospective Wiki.
Again, you should try them all; as a retrospective facilitator you need to work hard to keep the process
fresh and interesting thereby generating the greatest participation and quality results. In each of these
patterns the focus is looking for both positive events (things the team wants to continue) and negative
events (things that the team feels they need to improve or manage in order to perform better.)
Previously we mentioned the Round Robin pattern of inquiry for generating data. What might the
drawbacks of this pattern be?
Let us consider a relatively new team who has been working together for only a few sprints. In round robin
you gather them around a table and ask each in turn for input, what went wrong, what went well. One at a
time you put them on the spot. If you were on this team how would this make you feel?
People have different behaviors, some are very vocal, others less so, some are brash and speak their
minds, others are concerned about offending someone This round robin style has the least chance of
success with a new team. With a well seasoned team that has built considerable trust and confidence the
round robin style may work, but even then, I have not seen it be effective; not to mention that this serial
method of data collection takes too much time to get all the data.
Furthermore, during this round robin style, while one person is giving their answers the other members
are not truly listening. They are thinking about what they are going to say when they are under the heat of
the spotlight. Also, consider that while that person is speaking about how terrible the network problems
were the other team members may drop that item off their list as it has already been voiced. This action
causes you to lose a valuable piece of data consensus.
For these reasons most of the successful patterns for data collection involve some form of silent
brainstorming. Regardless of the patterns used the retrospective needs a strong facilitator to help control
the dominant personalities.
In silent brainstorming each team member is given a stack of 35 sticky notes and a medium felt tip pen
like a sharpie (this forces the notes to be written large enough to be read from a distance while limiting the
details on each note.) The team is given a timebox for generating ideas, sometimes a goal is placed
before them like generate 10 sticky notes each. Each team member writes down their ideas that answer
the questions posted on the board during the Set the stage step. Each retrospective pattern has slight
variations on the questions posed.
As the team members work independently to generate ideas there will be a flow, maybe slow to start then
gaining more momentum as their brains focus more deeply on the past sprint activities. If you have set the
stage appropriately their minds will already be focused on the past sprint and will have been reminded of
major events that occurred.

Eventually the flow will slow to a trickle or even stop. Even though the facilitator is time-boxing this activity,
if the flow is strong they should hold off on closing the time box, and if the flow trickles to a halt simply ask
if the team wants more time or if the time-box should be closed early.
Now what are the psychological forces at play here? First of all the silent brainstorming method makes all
members equal, both the loudly dominant and passive members are given equal voice. The quiet
members are given courage to voice their opinions and ideas, and the loud members are forced to
constrain their ideas to what fits on the sticky notes. Frequently team members will post their notes on the
board as they generate them, sometimes the facilitator will canvas the group and offer to post any
completed notes on the board while the team continues to generate data points. Team members who
begin to slow down can read the notes already posted and be prompted for new ideas. Usually they will
see duplications which emboldens their spirit with the knowledge that other teammates are thinking
similarly.

Step 3: Generate Insights

When the time box is closed the facilitator will ask the group to join him at the board to help organize the
sticky notes into groups to uncover the themes represented by the generated data, like Network Troubles,
Story Content or Acceptance Criteria, Interruptions, Product Owner availability, etc. Usually there will
be some amount of duplication, this is consensus, a valuable data point that helps build team cohesion.
When more than one person produces a note with an identical or closely related topic this demonstrates
how prevalent or important that topic is. When doing the round robin style the only way to collect this data
is to acknowledge the nodding heads around the table when one person is first broaching the topic. I think
that when 2 or more people are affected strongly enough by the idea to synthesize and record it on a
sticky note it shows a much higher degree of consensus.
Once all the notes are affinity grouped the facilitator can read through each note or group of notes, leaving
an opening for each author to add details thru discussion, or possibly requesting volunteers to explicate
complex topics. This is a tricky situation here where the facilitator needs to be careful not to attack or put
anyone on the spot. They need to help each team member feel supported, protected and safe so that they
can share their ideas without retribution. The ground rule of any brainstorming session is that no
judgement is applied when ideas are expressed. The facilitor should make this clear in step 1 Set the
Stage.
Once all the idea groups have been discussed the team will proceed to prioritizing the themed groups by
vote and discover the top 2 or 3 items where improvement is desired. I like to use multi-voting for this
stage. In multi-voting, otherwise known as dot voting, each participant is given 3 votes (sometimes more if
the number of affinity groups is large). They may place those votes any where they choose. Each vote
signifies a topic that is important to someone. After the voting is complete the facilitor tallies the votes and
identifies the top 1 or 2 topics for discussion.

Step 4: Decide what to do.

The top topics are given themes (subject names) for easy reference. From these themes the facilitor leads
a discussion with the team on how to improve these topic areas. This is once again a form of data
collection and it is up to the facilitor on how best to do this, but generally once the dirty laundry has been
aired and agreed upon the team begins to feel emboldened. Soliciting ideas on how to improve the
agreed upon subjects become less hazardous. Some patterns have the team break into small groups to
generate ideas on how to improve a specific topic. Some teams simply hold an open forum. Choose what
works best considering the emotional state of the team, the current sprint and the nature of the topics.
Eventually each topic will have 1 or more Executable Action Items attached that address the described
issue. The team discusses each of these items and makes a vote on their ability and desire to commit to
execution of each action item. Sometimes a person is assigned to an item with the responsibility to make
sure that item is completed, occasionally an expected due date is assigned as well. Other times it is
simply the attempt to adopt a new practice across the team.

Step 5: Close the Retrospective

Finally the facilitator will close the retrospective. Closing the retrospective helps the team leave the
meeting with a positive feeling that something good will come from all their work. This helps to encourage
them to participate more in future retrospectives. For more information refer to the book or provided
resources below.
The final aspect of the retrospective is to generate a BVC of the Executable Action Items and post it in the
team area for reference and discussion during team standups, and throughout the day as well.

Conclusion:
For a successful retrospective the facilitator must be organized and come to the meeting with a plan. They
must be strong enough to control the louder participants while generating an atmosphere of trust and
safety so that all team members may participate equally. The results of your efforts should create the
following:
1. Safety zone for open and honest communication
2. Group understanding thru discovery
3. Team committed Executable Action Items
The final artifact of the meeting is the Executable Action Items, which should be recorded in a team wiki
and posted on a BVC in the team work area. There are vast resources available to help you plan and keep
these sessions interesting, fun and productive. And remember, always have fun.

Resources:
Blogs & Wikis
XP123 Patterns for Iteration Retrospectives
Retrospectives.com
Refactoring Your Development Process with Retrospectives
Introspection And Retrospectives and Restrospective Techniques
Video: Retrospectives Presentation at San Francisco Agile User Group
Video: Agile Retrospectives Making Good Teams Great!
Esther Derbys Blog on Retrospectives
Delicious tags for Agile Retrospectives

SlideShare Presentations:
Effective Retrospectives
This is the best slide presentation I have seen on retrospectives. If you have never held a retrospective
this slide deck shows examples of and discusses a real retrospective producing qualitative results. A great
place to start if you do not know what an effective retrospective looks or feels like:
Retrospective CookBook

Books:
Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
Esther Derby (Author), Diana Larsen (Author), Ken Schwaber (Foreword)
Download the Free Extracted Excerpt from the Book
Download Agile 2007 Paper by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby
Read Esther Derbys Blog:
Cockburn, Alistair. Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley, 2001. Reflection workshops are a toplevel practice in Crystal Clear.

Kerievsky, Joshua. How to Run an Iteration Retrospective. 2002.

Kerth, Norm. Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews. Dorset House, 2001.
McCarthy, Jim and Michele McCarthy. Software for Your Head: Core Protocols for Creating and
Maintaining Shared Vision. Addison-Wesley, 2001.
Kaner, Sam, et al. Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. New Society Publishers, 1996.
Thiagi. www.thiagi.com Training and games.