retrospectives

Articles

Drawing of a person ascending stairs Continuous Improvement Activities beyond the Retrospective

One of the principles behind the Agile Manifesto is “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.” Unfortunately, many associate that practice with performing team retrospectives at the end of a sprint, or periodically in kanban. But if you seek to build a high-performing team, there are more improvement activities you should consider adopting.

Jeffery Payne's picture Jeffery Payne
Sticky notes on cabinet doors Applying Agile to Life: Taking Retrospectives outside the Workplace

A lot of what agile teams do can be used effectively outside software development teams, and even outside the typical business organization. For instance, retrospectives and the practice of talking about what went well, what you should keep doing, and what can be improved can be applied anywhere—even to families. Read on to learn how to bring continuous improvement into your daily life.

Ben Kopel's picture Ben Kopel
Signs saying "Continue doing," "Start doing," and "Stop doing" 5 Tips for Getting Retrospectives Done Right

Unfortunately, many retrospectives are not productive. It may be that the discussions are unfocused, not enough data was gathered to be helpful for analysis, or the team concentrates too much on issues they can’t control. Retrospectives should be a key part of an agile process for helping the team improve. Here are five tips that will help you have more valuable retrospectives.

Marco Corona's picture Marco Corona
Whiteboard with sticky notes for each day's retrospective comments Experimenting with Daily Retrospectives

Experimentation is a great way to unleash creativity, continuously improve, and see what works and what doesn't. When a team was tossing around the idea of doing daily retrospectives, agile coach Ben Kopel decided to guide them through some iterations on the process. Here, he talks about what the team did and what they gained from both the retrospectives and the quick feedback from experimenting.

Ben Kopel's picture Ben Kopel

Better Software Magazine Articles

Understanding Whole Team Testing

Whole team testing makes product quality everyone's business. It can also make people uncomfortable. Matt explains how this new way to approach project quality helps with leading retrospectives, conducting defect analysis, and mitigating project risks.

Matthew Heusser's picture Matthew Heusser
To Track or Not to Track

What's your take on the defect-tracking debate? Are defect logs helpful repositories of knowledge or cumbersome, inefficient inventories? Lisa Crispin took to the trenches to find out how different industry workers view defect-tracking systems. Find out what they had to say.

Lisa Crispin's picture Lisa Crispin

Interviews

Rob Bowley shares his Agile Retrospective Resource wiki The Agile Retrospective Wiki: An Interview with Rob Bowley
Video

The Agile Retrospective Resource Wiki provides an opportunity for agile practitioners to collaborate, share information, and gain new ideas about how to continuously improve not just the benefits from retrospectives, but also the processes behind the practice.

Noel Wurst's picture Noel Wurst

Conference Presentations

The Ritual of Retrospectives: Your First Best Tool for a Learning Organization

You've just finished your software release. You have signed off, and it's been shipped. You're done, right? No! The moment a project ends is the perfect time to reflect on the entire project to see what there is to learn-the unique moment when the project can be viewed in its entirety. You can look at the completion of your project as having "paid your tuition." So, now what are you going to learn from it? In this presentation, Norm Kerth explores the benefits, pitfalls, and experiences with this project management tool. Explore ways to use retrospection to improve future projects in your organization.

Norm Kerth, Elite Systems

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