Agile Retrospectives

7.1 Activity: Retrospective Planning Game

Use this to develop action plans in Deciding What to Do in a release, or project retrospective.

Purpose

Develop detailed plans for experiments or proposals.

Time needed

Forty to seventy-five minutes depending on the number of experiments and the size of the group.

Description

Team members work individually or in pairs to brainstorm all the tasks necessary to complete an experiment, improvement, or recommendation. After brainstorming, team members eliminate redundant tasks and fill in gaps. The task are arranged in order, and team members sign up for tasks they will complete.

Steps

1. Introduce the activity by saying, “We’re going to work on generating all the tasks needed to have our experiment succeed.” Then recap the experiment (improvement, or recommendation).

2. Describe the process:

   Work individually or in pairs to generate all the tasks.

   Form pairs of pairs to compare tasks, eliminate duplicates and fill gaps.

   Cluster the tasks and again check for duplicates and gaps.

   Order the tasks.

3. Form pairs (or not, if there are fewer than eight people do this individually). Hand out sticky notes or index cards and markers.

   Ask the group to write one task per card or sticky, leaving the bottom half blank. Show an example (see one below).

4. Form pairs of pairs (or pairs if the previous step was done individually). Reiterate the instruction: Compare tasks, eliminate duplicates and write any new tasks you realize are missing. ...