Did Walter Shewhart Invent The Sprint Retrospective?
Bill Hoberecht - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
The sprint retrospective has come of age. We have books, articles, seminars and, on nearly every team that works in sprints or iterations, a regular meeting where the team looks back at the last cycle and decides what to keep because it works, and what to change in the next cycle. Where did we get the notion of looking at our methods of work and making adjustments going forward?
At its core, a retrospective taps the wisdom of the people doing the work to drive small, continuous improvement. A few key innovators of the 1930s and later recognized the need for driving product quality. Perhaps unknowingly, we've applied their theories in our project post mortems, our lessons learned meetings, and now our sprint retrospectives.
A Great Way for a Team to Come Together and Plot the Future
Bill Hoberecht - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Through the work of a sprint, or a whole project, the team gains wisdom and perspectives that they didn't have at the start. The retrospective is an important mechanism for harvesting this newly gained wisdom and applying it to the next sprint. This article builds the case that retrospectives are vitally important in the life of a team.
Tips for Enabling Continuous Improvement by Teams
Bill Hoberecht - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Retrospectives are simple in purpose and easy to describe, yet most organizations are unable to achieve even trivial benefits from this immensely important activity. Thought leaders on retrospectives have published a rich set of materials to help teams adopt retrospectives - their insights are readily available to help you. You'll also find a few important tips that can establish the foundation in your organization for consistently obtaining the best results from your investment in retrospectives.
A Simple Outline of Activities and Approaches for a Successful Retrospective
Bill Hoberecht - This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
While the concept of a retrospective is easy to grasp, it is all too easy to fail when trying to implement it. Esther Derby and Diana Larsen have literally written the book on retrospectives (twice; the second edition arrived in 2024) - here is their five-step approach with some specific tips to get your teams effectively conducting retrospectives.