Posted by I work on a software development team that uses an agile approach to software development and we work in iterations called sprints. At the end of each sprint, we do a review process called a retrospective. This is a powerful technique that allows us to review what we do well, what we should start doing, and what we should stop doing.
Retrospective Questions
So how does a retrospective work? For the software development team I work on, the process we use is to have a team meeting where we answer the following three questions:
- What should we keep doing?
- What should we stop doing?
- What should we start doing?
The first question is about identifying what you are doing well. This helps you to identify what you should keep doing. For example, if you find that writing unit tests improves the quality of your software, this is something you should keep doing.
Once you identify what you do well, you can take steps to ensure that you and your team members keep following this process. In the case of unit tests, you could establish a coding standard where you include unit testing as part of future software projects developed by your company.
The second question is about identifying and eliminating things that are not working well. For example, if you find that storing the documentation for your software products in Word documents on a file share makes for documents that are not easily accessible outside of the office, you could stop using Word documents and you could transition to web-based documentation solution.
Once you identify something that you should stop doing, it is important to take steps to eliminate the problem. In the case of our documentation example, once you identify that Word documents are not a viable solution, you should start transitioning immediately to the new system you came up with in your retrospective meeting.
The third question is about identifying new things you can start doing that will improve your effectiveness as a team. For example, maybe someone on your team learns that paired programming can lead to better code, so you could identify paired programming as something your team could start doing.
Once you identify a new process or system you want to use, you need to start actively using it. In our example of paired programming, you can roll out a system where you have paired programming sessions once a week to trial the new system. If it proves to be effective, you could increase the frequency of paired programming sessions.
Assigning Tasks
Another important aspect of a retrospective is to assign tasks to team members. This is primarily about assigning the work to implement the changes to your team’s processes and systems that you identified during the discussion portion of your meeting.
If you don’t assign tasks to your team members, then no one may implement any of the changes you discussed. If you instead assign tasks to team members, you will ensure that the changes you want to make are initiated.
For example, if you identified paired programming as a process you want to start using, you could assign a task to two of your team members to schedule a paired programming session.
A Personal Retrospective
A retrospective is something that software development teams do. It can also be done by teams in other industries, as performing a retrospective is an important project management process. But you don’t have to limit retrospectives to business situations. You can also do a retrospective on your personal life.
For me, when I do a retrospective on myself, I pick a day, typically a Sunday, and I answer the three retrospective questions. I focus on identifying the habits and other systems in my life that I should keep doing, stop doing, and start doing.
For example, when I last did this process, I identified areas of my life where I was doing things that were good for my health and areas where I should stop doing things. For example, I identified that I should stop drinking soft drinks. I also identified some things I should start doing, like being more active and joining a gym.
By answering these three questions for myself I can improve my effectiveness in every area of my life where I answer these questions. It can help me improve my health, my finances, my relationships, and my effectiveness at work.
Conclusion
The value of performing a retrospective is that you can identify changes to the processes and systems you use that will make you and your team more effective. You can identify things that you are already doing and that you should keep doing. You can identify what isn’t working well and that you need to stop doing. You can also identify new systems and processes that you are not currently using and that you can start doing.
The reason to do this is that you can become more effective over time by regularly asking and answering these questions. More importantly, you can improve by implementing the ideas and techniques you identify by answering these questions.
You can do a retrospective at work. You can also do a personal retrospective to improve your own systems and processes. This can help you to improve in all areas of your life by learning what you do well and by identifying things you can stop and start doing in your life.
I encourage you to adopt a habit of regularly answering the three retrospective questions both at work and in your personal life. It will improve your effectiveness over time.