Name: Balancing Act

Context: 
The retrospective group has people with different roles and responsibilities.

Forces: 
People tend to have experience in their own specialist role and have less understanding of what other project roles involve.

Problem: 
Things are working well for one set of roles so there is no awareness that their actions/processes maybe causing issues for others in the group.

Solution: 
Explore how people feel about the project from the perspective of the role they play. 
A variant of the "Emotional Seismograph" (Kerth 2001) technique can be used.
Invite participants to use a whiteboard to draw a graph of how they felt about the project over time, vertical axis :) to :( 
The variation is to invite participants to use different colors for different roles  

Resulting Context: 
Understanding the consequences of our actions can refocus our efforts maintain a balance.

Contributor: Rachel Davies



Name: Open Channels

Context: 
The retrospective group has people with different personality types.

Forces: 
Some people find it hard to contribute verbally. Other people in a group may be confident to voice their stories.

Problem: 
Some people remain silent throughout a retrospective and so the group does not get the opportunity to learn from their experience.

Solution: 
Invite people to write their issues on cards. Gather the cards and group them in topics. Create triads to discuss the issues and nominate a spokesperson from each triad to report back to the group.

Resulting Context: 
All perspectives are shared.

Contributor: Rachel Davies



Name: Process Mapping

Context:
Team interactions are not well understood by all.

Forces:
A defined process may not be followed for a variety of reasons including understanding and effectiveness.

Problem: 
The official process is not followed. Efforts are not focused on untangling the knots in the unofficial process.

Solution: 
Ask group to split into triads and draw their process, showing their interactions and deliverables. Process charts are presented back to the group and differences discussed.

Resulting Context: 
Understanding our actual process can help us to improve it.

Contributor: Rachel Davies