How About A Retro Refresh?

Wayne is a software developer, ScrumMaster and Agile Coach.

  Innovation   Scrum   ProjectsAtWork  

Retrospectives are a catalyst for continuous team improvement, providing a feedback loop to examine methods, teamwork and results. But holding monotonous retrospectives that don’t engage your team isn’t much better than holding none at all. So here are three more fresh techniques to keep things interesting.

Making sure retrospectives engage your team requires innovation. If your retrospectives become stale, there effectiveness will be diluted.In previous articles, I have shared six techniques to keep things interesting, including The Wheel and The Sailboat (see “Fresh Retrospectives”), and The Cool Wall and Lean Coffee (see “3 More Fresh Retrospectives”). Here are three more techniques that I have found useful in keeping teams engaged and on the road to continuous improvement.

Technique 1 – The 4Ls

The 4Ls is shorthand for the following:

• What was Liked? What were the things that the team really appreciated about the sprint?
• What was Learned? What were things that the team learned that they did not know before the sprint?
• What Lacked? What were the things that the team think could have done better in the sprint?
• What was Longed For? What were the things the team desired or wished for but were not present during the sprint?

A 4Ls retrospective can be run by following these steps:

• …

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