 Treasure Maps. The topic of this retrospective is team purpose, and it's structured in order to be very useful for helping teams discover what they're aiming for, and for creating a collective plan for developing themselves as a team. For this retrospective, you'll need the following resources. A large piece of paper, ideally t-stained, with a large outline of an island drawn on it. Get YouTube instructions on how to t-stain paper, if you're not sure. If you don't have a large piece of paper available, then a whiteboard is a suitable alternative. You'll also need some sticky notes, some marker pens, and optionally, some paper avatars of the team members. You'll need to prepare the map template in advance of the retrospective. Hook. The first thing to do is to explain why everyone is here. Meaning that this retrospective is likely to take around 90 minutes, and will involve some writing on sticky notes, some working in small groups, and then consolidating as a group. We suggest welcoming everybody, and then introducing the goal of the retrospective by saying, �This retrospective is designed to help you find your bearings, and navigate your way through the dangerous terrain to find the buried treasure of teamwork.� Of course, feel free to get creative yourself and come up with an alternative hook. Events. Introduce the large map to the team, and ensure that it's easily visible and accessible to everyone in the room. Explain that the first thing we're going to do is to identify what the buried treasure might be. Break the group into smaller groups of about two or three people each, and ask those groups to consider what benefits they might get as a result of being part of a successful team. Ask them to write these ideas on sticky notes, one per sticky note. Examples might be, �We'll enjoy coming to work.� Or, �We'll be more productive.� Or perhaps, �Quality will be higher.� After a few minutes, or when people's ideas seem to be drying up, ask the team to put these sticky notes on the wall, before asking them to cluster them so that similar ideas are next to each other. Then ask the group to consolidate, if necessary, finding a new description to encapsulate those that are similar to one another, but not the same. Next, ask everyone to go back to their smaller groups and follow a similar process for what obstacles they can imagine getting in the way of them becoming a successful team. Suggestions for obstacles might include specific people, or management generally. Specific project deadlines, legacy code, the corporate reward structure, and working hours might come up. People might even mention aspects of the office environment. Once they've done this, allow them to cluster them, group, and consolidate again. Meanings. As we move into the meaning section, explain to the team that we're now going to build this information into our treasure map metaphor, and look at where these ideas are coming from. Starting with the treasure again, task the group with drawing simple images to represent each of the pieces of treasure. Ask them to place these pictures on the map. Once the pieces of treasure have been placed on the map, encourage the team to get creative and depict the obstacles, as items they might find on a treasure map, and place them on the map too. These could include, for example, the bog of bureaucracy, the rumbling volcano of legacy code, or the dangerous pirate cove of unsupportive management. Try to focus on about three to five for now, ensuring that the team can come back to the others in the future. Else. In this section, you have an opportunity to ask one or two questions to help the team think of other angles that may be of help to them. Use your intuition and judgement to decide which angle they might need some prompting on. Some suggestions we have are, what supplies might you need in your backpacks? Whose help or advice might be useful to seek out? What safe houses or refuges might there be? What don't you see on a map but might encounter, for example, wild boar? Another option here is to guide the team to define some team values or a code of conduct that will help them in their efforts to work together when searching for the treasure. Even Black Bart Roberts, the notorious 17th century pirate, had a code for those sailing on the royal fortune. Decisions. The focus of the retrospective now shifts to what actions the team are willing to take forward. In terms of the treasure map metaphor, this would equate to creating an itinerary. We recommend encouraging the team to spend a little time thinking about whether any of these pieces of treasure may be directly or indirectly connected in some way. Perhaps one is dependent upon another, or perhaps there's a logical order to approaching them. If sticky notes need to be moved because of these links, then encourage that. These connections could begin to look like a path or a route. We would also like to suggest that individuals are invited to place their avatars on the path to the obstacles that they are intending to tackle or the treasure that they intend to dig for. Remember, most teams going on a treasure hunt didn't have the luxury of modern technology, so they all made commitments as to when they would complete their assignments and check in with each other. Encourage the teams to do that as you close the retrospective.