Agile Retrospectives

5.6 Activity: Satisfaction Histogram

Use this activity to set the stage and/or gather data in an iteration retrospective.

Purpose

Highlight how satisfied team members are with a focus area. Provide a visual picture of current status in a particular area to help the team have deeper discussions and analysis. Acknowledge differences in perspective among team members.

Time needed

Five to ten minutes.

Description

Team members use a histogram to gauge individual and group satisfaction with practices and process.

Steps

1. Introduce the activity by saying “Today we’ll create a baseline measure of our level of satisfaction with the way we work together. We can repeat this activity in future iteration retrospectives to track our progress.”

2. Show the flip charts to the team, read the definitions, and hand out index cards or other identical small slips of paper, one to each team member.

   “Please write a number on your card that tells your level of satisfaction on the team right now. Then fold the card, and put it in a pile here.”

3. Stir the pile of cards, and ask for a volunteer to color in the graph as you read them. Read the number on each card. Wait for the tally before going on to the next.

4. Read the results from the graph. Ask for comments.

   You may comment on the data yourself: “It seems we have three people who are very satisfied on this team and two who aren’t, and the rest of us are somewhere in the middle. As we continue with our retrospective, we can keep these results ...