Scrum Retro Ideas

On this page I collected some Scrum Retrospective ideas that I can use.

Review

Super Mario

This contains five Mario characters:

  • Super Mario: what went well,
  • Power-up: dreams,
  • Bowser: Threats,
  • Piranha plant: Setbacks.

You can use this Poster in Dutch.

Team Journey Train

This contains three categories:

  • New Ideas,
  • Good work: Continue doing,
  • Impediments/Blockers.

You can use this Poster in Dutch.

A-team

This contains the four members of The A-team:

  • Face: visibility (good results),
  • Murdock: Remarkable (particularities),
  • B.A.: Group transportation (Teamwork),
  • Hannibal: Future plans (Goals and Strategy).

You can use this Poster in Dutch.

Pizza retro

This is a pizza containing 5 slices:

  • More,
  • Less,
  • Start,
  • Stop,
  • Continue.

You can use this Poster in Dutch.

Sea star

Like every sea star this retro has five categories:

  • More of,
  • Less of,
  • Start doing,
  • Stop doing,
  • Keep doing.

You can use this Poster in Dutch.

Race car

This contains four categories:

  • Engine (What gives speed),
  • Parachute (What holds us back),
  • Bridge (What helps us in our work),
  • Abyss (What dangers are ahead).

You can use this Poster.

Sail boat

This Sail boat consists of:

  • Goal & Dream,
  • Risks & Threats
  • Prosperity & Windfalls,
  • Adversity & Setbacks.

You can use this Poster in Dutch.

Superhero retro

Part 1: What is your superpower

Ask the people to write their superpower, they add to the team, on a sticky note and in short explain it.

Part 2: Superhero’s in the spring

What was:

  • [Liked] Super(man)
  • [Disliked] Bad(man)
  • [Learned] (doctor)Strange
  • [Longed for] (didn’t you) Dare(devil)

You can use this Poster.

Part 3: Team Superpowers

Ask the team to write down what they think is the superpower of the team.

Skills

Tip & Top

  1. Make a circle, and point out one person.
  2. Everyone else has to give the pointed out person, one Tip and tel about one thing he thinks is Top.
  3. After everyone had told something to this person, go to the next, until everyone received a Tip and a Top.

Team knowledge graph

  1. Write down the different knowledge area you think the team should have (eg backend, javascript, styling, testing).
  2. Define when you are average in each skill
  3. Then let everyone for themselves decide what skill they contain for every area (Jedi Master, Jedi Sentinel, Jedi Knight, Initiate)
  4. Look at the overview and decide what knowledge-gabs there are in the team (or where there is a thin coverage).
  5. Then let everyone decide what area they wat to grow in (Padawan).
  6. Talk about these apprenticeships to decide how the team can facilitate it for everyone.

Personal

M&Ms retro

Take a bag of M&M’s and let one person take an M&M and the color decides what question he has to answer. When answered it’s the next persons turn. For example questions you can use one of these sets. A Poster is also available.

  • [RED]: A point of improvement for work/sprint/team
  • [GREEN]: Positive about work/sprint/team
  • [ORANGE]: An idea for work/sprint/team
  • [YELLOW]: Learned during this sprint
  • [BLUE]: Give a tip for a team member
  • [BROWN]: Tell something about your private life
  • [RED]: A moment you particularly liked
  • [GREEN]: An awesome feature we delivered
  • [BLUE]: Something we should probably do next
  • [ORANGE]: A moment of stress
  • [BROWN]: Pick another M&M
  • [YELLOW]: What’s your favorite book, movie or food?
  • [RED]: Favorite summer activity
  • [GREEN]: What are you passionate about
  • [BLUE]: Favorite moment from last sprint
  • [ORANGE]: Favorite place to travel
  • [BROWN]: Name one life goal
  • [YELLOW]: Title of the book you last read
  • [RED]: What was your best day of your life and why?
  • [GREEN]: What is the thing that you would love to do nearly every day.
  • [BLUE]: What is the best meal that you ever made for dinner?
  • [ORANGE]: If you could sit on a bench in a beautiful wood, who would you like sitting next to you and why?
  • [BROWN]: If you woke up tomorrow as an animal, what animal would you choose to be and why?
  • [YELLOW]: How would your dream vacation look like?
  • [RED]: Something about yesterday
  • [GREEN]: Things you do well
  • [BLUE]: Something you learned last week
  • [ORANGE]: Favorite school subject
  • [BROWN]: Something about your childhood
  • [YELLOW]: toiletries you could not live without
  • [RED]: With what historical person would you like to have dinner and why?
  • [GREEN]: Name one thing of your bucket list you think no one expects.
  • [BLUE]: If you could choose to do anything for a day, what would it be?
  • [ORANGE]: If you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would it be?
  • [BROWN]: Is what you’re doing now what you always wanted to do growing up?
  • [YELLOW]: What’s an ideal weekend for you?

Guess my favorite song

http://www.funretrospectives.com/guess-my-favorite-song/

  1. Ask each participant to write their favorite song (please ask then to use uppercase and good handwriting to keep it anonymous).
  2. Collect the notes in a container.
  3. Shake it and leave the container on the center of the room.
  4. Ask one participant walk to the container, collect a note, read the song name out loudly and try guessing whose favorite song it is.
  5. Optionally, the facilitator should find the song (spotify or similar) and play it for the group.

Retro Questions

For this retrospective, prepare an envelope, box or bag with different questions for the team. We have example questions in Dutch.

Let everyone sit in a circle and give the envelope with questions to the first person. He has to pick a question blindly and answer it. Then give the envelope to the next person to do the same. You can discus the answers if people are interested in a Why or What. Keep going round till everyone has answered a question a couple of times, or the time is up.

Improvements

Well & Worries

http://www.funretrospectives.com/hopes-and-concerns/

Write down what you like about the (sprint, team, products) and what worries you about it (Can also be done with Hopes & Concerns).

  1. Draw a vertical line on a canvas separating it on two sides with the titles as WELL & WORRIES
  2. Ask the participants to write down on a post-it what we do Well and Worries them for the given sprint/team/products?
  3. Group conversation about the notes

The Aggregation of Marginal Gains (1% improvement)

“Success is a few simple disciplines, practiced every day; while failure is simply a few errors in judgment, repeated every day.”

  1. Let everyone write down ideas how to improve the team with 1%
  2. Discuss each one to make clear what kind of effect it could have
  3. Let everyone vote for what improvement we can implement next sprint

Technical dept priority

  1. (If it’s not the first time add the previous technical dept items and discuss if there are items to be removed)
  2. Let everyone write down other technical depts that were created last sprint(s)
  3. Let each person give 3 points to the depts he think are most important to fix.
  4. Soft the technical dept issues to get a priority list.

Sprint Closures

Simple Question

Write down ‘one thing that I learned last sprint’ or ‘One awesome thing someone did for me last sprint’

Kudo Card Wall

Ask people to write a Kudo card. Make sure you give one or more Kudo cards (TODO: work out Kudo card. Basically card with Kudo or Congratulations on it).