Learn what a retrospective is, Prime directive and the four questions retrospective

What is it?

• Comes from the necessity to regularly reflect about how project / team is going
• It’s an interactive way to focus on past things and see if there is a way we can improve them through a team effort and collaboration

The Prime Directive

Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.

What do I get from it?

• Discussion about important topics
  • already a step in the right direction
• Actions to improve in the future
• Grow, connect as a team

4 questions retrospective

• What went well?
• What didn’t go so well?
• What have I learned?
• What still puzzles me?

We look at the past to improve in the future

1. What went well?

• we start with stating positive things to ensure we continue on doing those positive things in the future
• State a fact
• Saying thx is cool
• You can go into details

2. What didn’t go so well?

• Difficulties, issues, dissatisfactions
• “Where better to look to make improvements than where things are not going so well?”
• Something less than ideal
• Give observations, not judgement
• “We spent a long time making the decision on the ordering process”, rather than “it shouldn’t take us long to decide the ordering process”

3. What have I learned?

• Positive + negative things

• Observations on the past Create Opportunities for the Future

4. What still puzzles me?

• Questions!
• Concerns
• Doubts
• Worries

Turning 4 questions into improvements

• We have some insights now
  • Identify actions to improve in the future
  • Volunteer for action
• Remember that the volunteer is not necessarily the person doing the actions, they should remind the team about the action and be mindful about respecting the action