Retrospective ideas how to#

“By the time you get to ‘now what,’ you should commit to no more than 3 actions, or you likely won’t do them,” he adds. He recommends brainstorming during the “what” stage, then voting on which 3-5 items you want to discuss. Pete Lim notes that it’s important to narrow your focus, to make sure you actually follow through on these actions. So, each “what” has a corresponding “so what” and “now what” - so you can tie the entire story together and make sure you have next steps for everything. What makes What So What Now What a bit different is that each item has its own story that flows through each of the three categories.

You can use this framework to make sense of work done, a project that was delivered, or any feedback received. The structure is built around an event (“what”), the implications of that event (“so what”), as well as next steps (“now what”). This exercise was created for a learning environment, but it’s also great for teams. Good for: creating action items specifically tied to issues that were identified Good for: identifying specific actions to take, looking both backwards and forwards Check out some recommendations, based on what’s worked for different teams and situations at Miro. That said, we all have our preferences and favorites. Otherwise, teams start going through the motions – even with good facilitation,” advises Vanessa Sequeira. “As a facilitator, I like to start with something really simple and keep doing the same one for a while so the team gets comfortable with it and doesn’t have to spend the mental energy learning a new format.”Īt the same time, teams that run frequent retros might get fatigued and need a new approach. “The framework you choose is whatever gets a good result from the team,” explains Pete Lim, Agile Coach at Miro. How do you know which one to go with? It turns out that the answer is “it depends,” and what you get out of it largely depends on what you put into it.

Retrospective ideas how to#

(This quarter, it’s introducing remote-friendly social hours for team bonding and inviting senior leaders to AMAs for visibility into company priorities.) I am now a retro believer! How to choose a retrospective templateįor something so straightforward, it can sometimes feel like there is a dizzying array of different retros to choose from. My team runs them every quarter, and at the end we always choose two or three focus areas with specific action items and owners. Create your own templates or used the default ones. The experience is positive, energizing, and insightful. A retrospective board designed to keep you improving, just a single click and a fully customizable retrospective board is ready for you. It empowers teams to inspect and adapt to the way they work rather than the work itself,” says Vanessa Sequeira, head of people design at Miro. “In my opinion, the retrospective is the most important Agile ceremony – and it’s often the one that most teams skip. And in practice, one of the ways we commit to always learning and getting better is by running retrospectives: on the team level, the company level, and on specific projects.