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Join the Dark Side's Timeline Retrospective

Fri, 04 May 2018 11:12:40 -0700

"Really?? Blast... I'm not looking forward to THIS retrospective!"

The Empire doesn't use Waterfall. Its ruthless efficiency and innovative technological supremacy are clearly the outcome of Scaled Agile with an entire leeegion of its finest scrum masters awaiting every team need.

And, in an organization where you might be Force-choked to death after one mistake (I guess that's one way to "build projects around motivated individuals"), an extreme challenge for a scrum master or coach is to conduct an effective retrospective after a huge disaster has the team throwing blame around like Sith apprentices in a Force-lightning class.

Back in the real world -- unless you're spending way too much time with the 501st -- you're (hopefully!) not employed by the Galactic Empire.

Mistakes still suck, though, regardless of how awesome your company culture and team might be. We don't enjoy making mistakes, and we enjoy talking about them with others far less. Who hasn't dreaded one of "those" retrospectives at some point?

When something has gone badly wrong and thinking is clouded by anger, frustration, or blame, some corporate cultures might find it almost impossible to objectively assess the facts and root causes, then give the team an opportunity to clear the air in a productive, constructive way.

Yet, it's critical to learn from disasters so they don't happen again!

How best to frame up complicated yet vital discussions when morale is low and emotions are high?

Start by building a shared, chronological view of facts to then use as a framework for highlighting significant events and individual...Read More

Make a Decision and Keep Moving

Wed, 02 May 2018 10:12:56 -0700

Early in my career, I moved from technical project management to product. I inherited a large software product midway through Testing phase in a waterfall model, weeks from a global launch. The reality of my new career hit me during my first bug scrub with the team.
The question came up: is this bug a blocker for the upcoming Beta? We all shared our opinions, and then there was an expectant silence. Everyone looked at me -- the product lead -- for the final decision. If we deployed without this bugfix, Beta functionality (and our test plans) might be impacted. If we delayed the build to add the fix, we might put subsequent Beta cycles at risk, which in turn could affect launch readiness and quality. What should we do?
As I discovered, making a sound decision is not always easy. Product management is a constant balancing act -- one in which we juggle everything from ad tech to zero tech debt and all the user needs in between -- and, at times, an overwhelming one. How do you make a call and stick by it without being a despotic tyrant or sinking into the quagmire of analysis paralysis?
When faced with the overwhelming prospect of the big proverbial ball of tar, wax, and/or yarn, or that huge heap of unranked "stuff" (which could be priorities, ideas, jobs, tasks, or bugs), you obviously need to quickly hone in on what's "valuable".
However, the tech or design lead's definition of "value" may not be shared by the would-be tinpot product dictator, who often has executives, lawyers, or accessibility experts -- even politicians -- breathing down their neck. This is where context and collaboration will save you. If everyone on the team can establish then operate from some shared degree of knowledge, you'll be less likely to get stuck or make decisions in a vacuum.
How do you decide what's important to the team and the product as a whole? First,...Read More

Fresh Ideas for Better Retrospectives

Tue, 17 Apr 2018 13:46:57 -0700

Average read: 5-8 mins
Work can be messy, and humans aren't errorless, emotionless robots. Sharing and responding to feedback on a regular basis can be challenging for some teams, especially following a difficult iteration or deployment.
Even when the team has plenty of context and is operating from a place of mutual trust and safety, retrospectives can still be stressful for introverts (like me) who can find the prospect of verbal communication intimidating.
If you are consistently struggling to cluster and categorize team feedback, if you're looking for more room for discussion and experimentation, if you've been skirting around powerful emotions with no outlets or techniques to uncover them, or you just want to try something new and fun, here are some enhancements and alternatives to consider.
Have fun.
If your team is new to agile (or retrospectives), shy, worn out, or any combination of these, skip the procedural approaches and try something easy that will galvanize your team and encourage a positive shared experience.
Tell stories!
Story-style retrospectives, where some sort of basic story or scenario is utilized to explore goals, assets, factors, and root causes, are fun ways to fire up imaginations and get people participating. Their deceptive simplicity makes them especially useful for futurespectives or establishing broader visions and goals.
Plus, drawing silly things like zombies or pirates and icebergs is (usually) a terrific ice-breaker.
Challenge stories: how would the team fight off a zombie apocalypse?
Momentum stories: what factors help a craft -- Read More

Hoist the Flag: A Discussion Tool

Sat, 17 Feb 2018 15:50:49 -0800

With proper set-up and context, retrospectives can be vital tools to help any group of people share and discuss their opinions about topics, even heated ones, in a calm and constructive manner. In light of the recent events in Parkland, Fla., I have adapted some known retrospective techniques and developed this exercise as a resource that can be used to encourage healthy debate in classrooms, church groups, town halls, at home, or in any organized or ad hoc community setting.
Notes for newbies: If you've never run a retrospective before, here is a good step-by-step guide that provides additional context. The three big things to do well? 1. Be clear about the context or challenge to avoid unrelated tangents, 2. Give everyone a chance to be heard and understood in a respectful, empathetic, and polite manner, and 3. Make sure any outcomes and next steps are reasonable and achievable (e.g. SMART goals). If you're not accustomed to facilitating group discussions, limit the number of participants to no more than 10 people for a 90 minute session or, if you have a large group, run smaller sessions in parallel with help from other facilitators.
Most importantly, give yourself and your participants choices: ask them if they'd like to add extra time to the session; ask them if they'd like to table an item and return to it later. Adapt the format to your needs.
Hoist the Flag: How Might We Reduce School Shootings?
Use the sobering symbol of our national flag at half-staff, lowered most recently to coincide with a period of mourning for the seventeen victims of the school...Read More

Resolution Solutions

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 11:34:57 -0800

Disclaimer: this isn't a tough-love motivational post about the importance of SMART New Year's Resolutions or that one weird (yet astoundingly clever!) trick on how to achieve them. Nor is it a clever and quirky way to show you how to conduct an effective retrospective because there are already plenty of great examples online, including this one. It's just me taking a bit of agile out of the workspace, introducing it to my personal headspace, then sharing my thoughts on what happened.
- Laura
Tech professionals often apply philosophies from everyday life and pop culture (especially Star Wars!) into the workplace to help others learn, to make sense of the chaos in the office, and, crucially, to exploit any plausible opportunity to be as geeky as possible on company time.
There is a two-fold value in the reverse: adapting tech processes to common everyday questions and tasks allows you to practice and master a technique in a more familiar or functional setting while also helping you approach personal questions or obstacles in a creative, less linear way. One common task that could do with a bit of agile inspiration is the process for writing the New Year's Resolution List.
In our rabidly competitive American culture, where we're equally obsessed with the virtues of recklessly ambitious self-improvement and the paradox of egotistical self-sacrifice, there's something appealing about taking just one day to reflect upon the blur of the past year and look at what we might improve in the year ahead. (Kind of like what we should be doing between...Read More