 I have Jerry and Gautam here from Solutions IQ who would be helping us in this today's session. And I hope, I mean did anyone of you get any intimation to carry your diving suits? No? Okay. Don't worry even if you don't have, doesn't matter, we really explore a lot in this one hour. So what I would be doing in this one hour is I will make you all to really deep dive into this limitless sea of retrospectives which has been one of my interest area for a couple of years. So I am Madhvi, I am from Solutions IQ, I am from Hyderabad and I work as an agile consulting coach for SIQ. So that's about me and Jerry would you like to just introduce, so Jerry is our, no he is a coach and he is agile consultant at SIQ, he is CSC so he will be helping us in this session too. So how I have divided this one hour session is, the first 15 minutes I would be doing a retrospective surgery where we will talk about the common symptoms, the common smells that we come across while doing the retrospectives and what was my approach of tackling them and then the remaining 45 minutes you all would be doing a retrospective surgery wherein I will be giving you some real life example scenarios and you will play with it. So retrospective surgery, why am I calling it surgery? Any thoughts? Post-mortem. Okay. Okay. Any other thoughts? Why surgery? Yes. Yes. Okay. Good. Thank you. So difficult. Good. Okay. So assume, no, you have a patient suffering with the diabetics and he has a tumor in the hand and he comes to a doctor. What would a doctor do? Would he directly take him to the operation theater and operate? No, right? What happens if he does that? That might be his last day, right? So what does a doctor do typically? He tries to assess, he tries to do some preliminary investigations, find out the background of that particular person, what are his ailments, get some preliminary information and then he will suggest a suitable surgical procedure that will suit him, right? So that is the same case even in software engineering. When we are working with teams, when we are trying to, you know, use some method or a technique, understanding the background and the context of the teams is very, very important. So we as crumb masters and agile coaches, when we are working with the teams, we need to really understand what is the context, what is the background, what is the situation that we are posed with and then try to use a suitable technique or a method that will actually suit the given scenario, got it? Now these are some of the common symptoms or I can say retrospective smells that I have come across while working with the teams or as in repeated issues pop up, he has an engrossing and engaging discussions are missing, teams just come, how was the tea, how was the coffee, they just, just go away, right? And teams are present virtually, just for the sake of it, they come and they sleep, then they go, okay? Routine stuff, nothing interest the teams and observably gets boring over time and I am sure all of you must have encountered similar symptoms. So do you all want to share some other symptoms which you have come across while doing retrospectives with your teams? Maybe one or two pointers or exactly the same symptoms, common symptoms, yes? So there's no focus, basically you don't come up with something solid, you don't conclude on anything, it just goes on and on like waves. Time boxing is also very important and that's an art, art of facilitation which doesn't come in one day, okay? So the intent of this workshop is to really make you all think, make you all realize that we can do something different, come up with our own ideas and techniques to make these reflections really lively. So the retro, the definition here which I have put on this slide is the actual, it is the actual key characteristics of an engaging team, right? Is it obvious? Realize where you are and where you want to be, engage the team in fruitful discussions. Teamwork to build V over I attitude and you need to really release the power of your inspect and adapt cycles, openness and transparency, which are the main two pillars of your inspect and adapt cycles. Now, yes, all of us want to change, we want to do something really innovative or creative, but how do we do that? We need to bring in that small change, do something different, break the monotonous, break the usual norms and try out something different from your end. So continuously, we need to ponder as in, what am I doing tomorrow? So that I can achieve better results than today. It's like, we are so much habituated to do the same thing over and over. It's like I have a fever and I take the same clothes in every time. So what happens over a period of time? Our body gets resistance to that, right? So after a period of time, we change the tablet. So similarly, we need to really break the usual norms and do something different when these meetings they get boring over a period of time. So these are some of the common techniques, old is always gold. So these are the crux of it, wherein on top of this we can always build. Whenever we see that we need to make a change, add a pinch of your salt to make it tasty. Add your own creative and innovative ideas to these basic techniques to change them. So now, what did I do? I will be sharing how I have used my real life examples and some interesting scenarios that I have come across while doing retrospectives with my teams. Okay, so let me start with an interesting experience. What does that picture show? Yeah, what does that picture show? We're flying a kite, right? So even I was, we all fly kites on Pungal Eve, the Eve of Pungal Festival. So even I was flying kites. And in the process of that, I have seen few tangles on the ground, which I was easily able to untangle with the help of my kids. But as a flight flew high and high in the sky, it got stuck between the high-tension electric wires. So I cannot go really and remove it from there because the life current is flowing through them. So I had to take help of sticks and take help of my neighbors to actually remove the kite. So I visualized, I just realized that this situation is very much similar to some of the scenarios that I was actually seeing with my teams. We come across various impediments. Some of them are like the team level impediments that we can resolve by ourselves. Some of the impediments we really need to escalate it to the next level for resolution. So we'd had a retrospective after one week of the Pungal Festival. So what I did was I just drew a kite picture on the board and I said, now look, this kite is a good work that we have been doing. Identify what are the impediments that we have, what we can resolve by ourselves, and what we really need to escalate it to the next level for resolution. So somehow teams like this method a lot and they were able to draw a clear line of distinction between the different levels of impediments in an organization. So this was one of the very interesting experience I had and it really worked out well with my teams. Yes, the next one. Any guesses, what is that real launch? Good, Mangalyan, right? So this is the picture of a Mangalyan. It was launched, I think last September or sometime. And it was all set to hit the mass orbiter. And immediately the next day actually we had a retrospective with our team. And the coincidence was, Mangalyan had one year to hit the mass orbiter. Whereas our team, we just had one sprint to finish that quarter release. So somehow I tried to correlate these two. I just went ahead, drew this picture on the board, the rocket picture and I said, it was an affiliate team. So I said, this is our Afyan. And I said, as Mangalyan is important to India, our Afyan is very important to our organization. And the correlation is we have just one week to complete our sprint. Mangalyan has one year. So quickly identify what are the impediments that you have and what are the driving forces that are helping you to meet your sprint goal. So the teams were really happy with this metaphor, with this comparison. And they really could come up with good data points. So the message here is that whenever you hear or see something live, you can take it back to your teams because they can really correlate to them because they have seen that happening. Got my point? Okay, so I'll quickly go over the techniques so that we can actually practice them. Yes, this is one, focus word creates real focus. Now whenever I wanted my teams to really focus on some aspect, a simple example, I was seeing a lot of repeated issues, bugs coming up, technical data items coming up. So I really wanted the team to focus on quality in one of the retrospectives. So what I did is I just went ahead and added a specific focus quadrant to the normal retrospective technique. So that really helped the team to think about that particular specific accept. So it is like you can customize your existing retrospective, add a specific focus quadrant that really needs the team to focus on. So you can say focus on quality, focus on the schedule ratio, focus on velocity, whatever you want the team to retrospect on. So this also helped a lot. Yes, what is this? Team journey, any guesses? Sorry, team journey, any guesses? Release planning, okay? Any other guess team journey? As a team, we have to win. So basically the team journey is like we can use this technique or I use this technique whenever the team actually has traveled together, maybe for four or five sprints. It's like a combined retrospective of four or five sprints. So the scenario what actually was that I was encountered was, I was working with the organizational scrum master and a lot of structural changes were happening. So suddenly I was moved to a new team, made a scrum master of that team. And that particular team had already completed four sprints. They were entering into the fifth sprint. And I saw mixed emotions in the team members. One was very happy, one was not very happy. The other one was he doesn't speak at all. So I just wanted to understand what is the current as a state. So then I just drew a train picture on the board and I said, no, this is our team train. We have traveled together for four sprints. Now we are entering into the fifth sprint. So let us retrospect on how our four sprints went. So the concept here is that whenever we use the term journey, the teams can really visualize on how they have actually traveled together. No, it doesn't mean that every time you have to draw a train. If your team likes to fly in a plane, you have high budget team. You can draw a plane also. So whatever vehicle your team likes, you can just put it there. So team journey is like a concept that can be used whenever the teams have completed four or five sprints and you want to retrospect on how that particular journey was. And this is one of my favorites. I'll say this is in a mountain trekking. So imagine this person is climbing the mountain and the goal is to reach the top of the mountain. So when he's climbing, we have some slippery slopes here which will bring him down. Some elements like having a helmet, wearing a shoes and ropes will help him reach the mountain goal. And that is the most important. The unique thing in this particular metaphor is the risk part in the form of thunder and rain. So I use this metaphor saying that whenever the team is working on some critical aspect, say you're doing changing the underlying architecture, which has a lot of impact, a lot of risk can be there because you're changing the underlying architecture and many components could be affected. So this technique can be used wherein you really want the team to retrospect, think of the upcoming risks, so that they can mitigate them well while trying to come up with the action items. So this aspect really worked very well for us. Any questions? This is self-explanatory. This is like in a highway drive. The team is going on a highway drive. And these are like the sign boards that will help the team move ahead. And these are like the impediments, the pitches on the road. And that is like a dead end, that is again like a risk. And this is again a very useful thing. It's like, where is the block in the flow? This can be typically used with Kanban teams wherein you have so many problems, you really want to understand where the problem is in which stage. So what I did was I just drew this diagram and I named the stages that were applicable to the teams. And then we tried to identify the cloud tunnel held points in each of the stages. And so in whichever stage we have more held points, that was a problematic stage. So it was very evident rather than doing a general retrospective. And this is the most famous that we use at SIQ, Pain and Pleasure, where we try to identify the pain points and the pleasure points and then talk about that. Now let's talk about few techniques. What else can we do to make these meetings lively? We should never forget to appreciate the team members for the good work that they do. Because whenever you give away some smiley badges and thank them, appreciate them in front of everybody, it will have an everlasting impact on the teams. And they will be motivated to do good work. And you can change the style. Instead of having the retrospective in the same room, same office, you can once in a while go out, do a retrospective over coffee talk, over lunch. But in all these cases, your scrum master should keep his radars on, note on few important points so that he can take it forward. Innovationgames.com, it's coming up. So these pictures that you have seen here, now all these are the actual retrospective pictures that we have done with the teams. And these games are actually online, liveoninnovationgames.com. So you can log into this and you can use these. So these are again the live, the actual pictures that we have tried out with the teams. So go to innovationgames.com, you have N number of retrospective techniques there. So suppose your team two members are in Bangalore, two members are in Hyderabad, one is in Pune, it's very easy and it is very effective. It's on just one click of a button, you can consolidate all the retrospective data in an Excel sheet. So action plan, which is very important, at the end of retrospective, you really need to come up with the action plan as to how you will work on whatever you have discussed. You can always save the action plan in Excel sheet or have a visual indicator or radiator like this in your team space. Now, which technique to use? Any guesses? How will you, which technique to use? Understand your team, understand the context, understand the background, look at the situation and then use your appropriate technique. Device your own technique that will really make the teams talk and think. There's no one liner or you know, it's like this technique only has to be used. There's no single rule like that. So these are some of the pictures and you can find the same pictures there. We have put up there, so you can just look at them and the same games are live on innovationgames.com. You can log on to innovationgames.com and use these games, play these games for distributed teams, yes. So there's one technique there, good to great. Your teams say good, but what do you really need to become great? See where you are, what is that you're doing? Maybe you're doing good at TDD, but are you really good at the integration part of it across all the features? You need to understand, just discuss with the team. We are good, I agree, but what is that, what can we do to become great? It's again about discussion. So now let's get our hands dirty. Let's do the retrospectives. So how we will be doing the retrospectives is each table, now we will make five groups, form five groups, each one of you will get real life scenarios and at this toolkit of retrospective techniques. So pick one scenario out of them and find out which technique is relevant to that particular scenario and do a retrospective. You get 10 minutes to do the retrospective, then you need to debrief for three minutes. What was the scenario? Why did you choose this particular technique to do retrospective for that scenario? So I'll give you postage scenarios and all these. So once you tell which scenario and which tool, which technique you have picked, I'll give you a chart for this. It's not, these are actual games on innovationgames.com. These are online games. These are very quick, I mean, I can give you an example last retrospective, I've just finished in 20 minutes because it's like online, everyone will type from different locations and on just one click of an Excel button, see here you have an Excel click, right? So on one click of an Excel button, you get all the data correlated. So it's, yes. In a room normal, not more than an R. Okay, so Jerry, I think we need to distribute this. Shall we make five teams? So one table here, second, third, fourth and fifth. Five teams, let's do a sketch. So this is one table over here. Second, where's the second table? Maybe you can just join. It's not at least one action item. So let us know which technique you're picking so that we will give you, and please raise your hands when you're ready with the scenario and techniques so that we can give you the appropriate charts. They will choose one corner, they'll stick a chart and they will do it. Just pick one, and there's some keywords which will help you do it. So just have 10 minutes because then we'll end with a game. Let's do it fast. Everything is for a team. So which technique did you pick up and when you're in a room? Fast? You don't have time. What is the movie one? Which movie are you in? Okay? So that they really need to focus on after nominations, focus. Sergio, we are at your door. So all the teams have started their retrospectives. Do you just have five more minutes to complete your retrospectives? So all the teams have started their retrospectives. Do you just have five more minutes to complete your retrospectives? No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're in the wrong picture. You're in the wrong picture. No, but it's the same thing. Even what you're saying is the same thing, just how you're pace, please. Whatever you're drawing, sorry. You're in the wrong picture. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what I'm doing. It's very, very, very hard. How can you do it all at once? Just take the outside. How much do you want? No, I'll give you the picture. No. I don't know how much more I want it, but your retrospectives. Think of what the scenario is and think... I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know how. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. So, please come over here, we will have two teams debrief and then we will end with an interesting game, ok. We will start your journey of retrospectives with your, with an interesting game. So, come forward, we will first hear this team debrief and then this team. So, all of you please come forward, come this side, we will have this team debrief. So, all of you can listen. Come, yeah. Come forward. So, you want a debrief first? So, please use the mic. Explain what scenario, why you have picked up this technique and one action item, top most action item that you have come out. So, we have chosen why Hindi movies do not generally get nominated and that line. So, we felt that trekking was the right criteria because it had risks, it had blockers and it had enablers. So, we felt that this would suit our criteria in helping why Hindi movies should get nominated for Oscars. So, you want to pick all of them, talk about all of them. Yeah, I can just quickly give an overview of what you have. Ok, so what we felt blockers are stupid rules, more of commercial, highly illogical, no good storyline, too much masala and too lengthy. Same for less enablers, we have not experimental, good music, real world stories, latest technologies, have the Hindi movie in English as well, so a lot of people would love it. Ok, acquired taste, so we feel that people who like Hindi movies have an acquired taste, not every English person can like Hindi movie, so promote more and more of Hindi movie. Sprint goal, audience taste, underworld involvement and black money, losing on revenue. Ok, risks. So, I think that's from our team. So, how do you feel using such techniques? So, I think… Were you able to relate the scenario with this technique? Was it helpful? It was useful but if I had to connect this scenario to my real work scenario, I have always feel that in retrospective, we come out with solid and awesome points. From my three years experience, I can tell you that we've never gone back. So, this week retrospective, we've had action items but we've never bothered checking whether those action items were completed or not. So, a very important point to note down is whenever we are starting a retrospective for the current sprint, revisit the previous sprint action items to check whether we have really acted upon them or not. If not, consider whether you really need to again reconsider them in this sprint or not. Yeah. I'm having a suggestion about this. What we are doing is… Correct. Improve it. And you can also… Yes, that also we can do. Thank you. Put some radiation down. Yes. So, thank you. Thanks a lot. Yes. So, thank you. Next team, you want to like to debrief? Yes. So, you have to explain what was the scenario and why did you pick this technique? How did it help you? Yes. Our team members… Yeah, maybe the entire team can be here. We have chosen the case study number one. India has come to semi-finals in the World Cup. Okay. For that, we have selected this good-to-great technique. It will not get applied. As a team, as a team we selected… We felt that this is the best technique which will be adopted… So, the team is really good, but you wanted to, you know, become great by winning the World Cup. Exactly. So, we came up… Like, currently why it's good? We came up with some of the points. Like, it's good because of the team effort and team coordination and good teamwork by all the team members and currently it's in good form. And Bowlers did a fantastic job and took in almost all the matches. They took all complete ten wickets. These are the reasons for the current good situation. And how it can be… It can be a great team. It's like Bowlers should be consistent in getting more wickets. All the Bowlers, when I say. And team-wise we have to make some more smart team strategy. And consistent play. And it requires some reorg within the team. Refactoring. Refactoring. And again, like, there are some inconsistency in batting order that has to be taken care. If these things are taken care, then India will become a great team. Good. Thank you. You all know, yesterday we have seen that. Yes. Thank you. Now, the note is he has forgot one point. This exercise we have done day before yesterday. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Good. Yeah, so one more team will get a chance to debrief. Then we'll move on because we need to, you know, do an important game. Yes. Maybe you want to debrief. So make it quick. Two minutes debrief because we'll give two minutes and two minutes will wind up. Because we have a good game to play. We'll end the session with the game. So it is the same tricking thing which we have taken up. And the scenario what we have taken is the Oscar award. Why the Indian movies are not selected for the award. So we have the goal. Give a quick overview. Don't go each post it. So we have categorized the blockers, enablers and risk and what is the goal. So among the blockers, what we have, we have notified is the lack of marketing and the subject line and the budget. Budget is not that enough to go for the Indian movies to that rate. And so we have, for as an enablers, we need some of the, we felt that the international recognized musicians or any players, so which are international recognized people are needed and more of a collaboration between the production houses or any of kind. So that will be an enabler for us. And the story, no copycats. So that is what, that is the main thing and the talent grooming. So talent grooming is one of the enablers which will help us to grow. And international, international stats. Yeah, international recognized, recognized productions, across for all production, music, everything. So that will help us to move. So how did you find this technique? Was it useful? I mean, did you see any difference in the way you are doing retrospectives till now and the way you have done now? We like this technique very much because best part was the risk part because as soon as we saw that, it automatically triggers to us. And blockers and enablers, those were the two direct strategy what we got from here. So it doesn't take much time for us to realize, like think what we can do, what we can't. So we have a straightforward thing and we can easily think upon. So awesome technique, I would say that. So the intent of this workshop is also to let you all know that these five are not prescriptive techniques. You can just go and you know, just look at the situation, look at the scenario that you are posed with. Come up with your own technique that you can relate to it. That will help a lot. Just one more point is I tried with one another technique called the one word play, one word game. So just not to bore the team. So we tried with one word where for the last sprint, how would you express that sprint to be in a one word? That was really fun because we were not able to think it in one word. One word of what? Yeah, one word of how you think. So that is just for fun. Thank you. Thanks for sharing. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. So this last team. Hi folks. My name is Arun Kumar. We have chosen what is currently visible in Indian market where you know, you have the online stores which are killing into the physical stores. Yeah. That is what we are taking. So we try to, you know, get the enablers, blockers risk and all being sorted out. So the key blockers which we could find is one is, you know, you have this instant buying experience from your mobile. And we had a recent example of my friend who bought instantly because he got an offer over his mobile phone as an, you know, as an app, right? And then you have, you know, prices are very competitive from an online perspective because they don't have a physical store. So some of those things are there. And the neighbors which we try to do to, you know, increase the footfall. One of them is most important is quality of service. If somebody is visiting the store, he should feel a good experience of, you know, he has got the product out. The other thing is, you know, you have the allied services, which is where it is a unique thing because if you are a, what do you call, clothing giant and, you know, and you have a tailor with you who can, you know, customize then and there while you are, you know, shopping, it can experience which cannot be given by the physical online store. You have a family experience. So, you know, when somebody is going, like, you know, on all the big malls, you have an experience for your children, for your wife, son, kids, everybody. So there's, it's become the journey rather than, you know, just a buying experience. And, you know, and you can obviously, you know, try to do a cross, what do you call, setting of your offers. So you have both online offers on the competitors' website, as well as, you know, you have the offline offers in physical stores. The risk is, you know, that you might have to maintain big inventories, thinking that, you know, based on this whole business case, you might have to put in a lot of, you know, goods into place, which cannot, may not be, you know, in a good use. And other risk is, obviously, you know, you will have other competition, you know, just killing again back into it. And so you can have a reduction in margins going over and over again. So those are a couple of things which we try to focus on. How did you find this new technique? Did you find it useful? What is the difference that you found? Yeah, I think... Does this trigger, trigger, trigger, you know, some kind of thought process in you? Yeah, I think it gives you a clarity of thinking on different lines, because otherwise, you know, you keep jumbling and you have to keep some track. Here it is giving you a track easily. You can, you know... So you're building a storyline? Yeah, you are building a storyline and you can, as you put something in one side, you can always look at how the other side can be, you know, working around, right? The whole problem as a journey. Yes. Yes. So exactly the intent of this workshop is also the same thing. You need to build, come up with your own storyline depending upon the situation you are in. That will help you a lot to retrospect. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Let us start your retrospective journey, you know, your deep dive journey from tomorrow by, you know, playing a small game. So what is this? With Titanic, right? What is happening to that? It is sinking, right? So now, what is this picture? We, you know, the game is, Sink the Titanic. Okay. Think about one pointer, one point that you can actually do. You would like to do so that you actually sink the Titanic. Maybe all of you can just come up with one point. We are playing the game. This game is called, Sink the Titanic. Okay. All of you need to give me at least one point that will make this sinking Titanic sink instantaneously, even more faster. Throw a notion over it. Yes. Put a grenade. Put a grenade. Good. Bomb. Bomb. Bomb. Any other thoughts? Quick. Tidal wave. Tidal wave. Good. Tsunami. Any other thoughts? What was, yes, you are still telling something. Okay. Now let us look at what happened here. Look at this pic. So it's, you know, really cool. You have given me such thoughts that the entire boat has just, you know, sunk in minutes. Ideally it would have taken maybe one hour, but with your thoughts, powerful thoughts, it was really, you know, pretty quick. So great job. Appreciate. Okay. Don't take it back. No, no, no. Okay. Now can you, now that you have expressed all your negative thoughts out, you know, can you think about one point wherein you really can, you know, make, save the ship. It's like you're inverting the game that we just played. So, yes. As a team. Iceberg. Iceberg. Okay. So, I mean, good. So the main intent behind this game is, now this actually, this is actually called as Earth Triss. It's one of the popular retrospective game that is used at Solutions IQ. It is called Triss. So what we are doing here is, we are first trying to express all our negative thoughts. So once all our negative thoughts are out, now we know what we should not do in order to make your project to suck. So we have recently, we very often use this technique with our customers. So recently we had a problem wherein, you know, there were a lot of problems around the product backlog. The product owner had so many problems. User stories had so many problems. We were trying to use different techniques. Nothing worked. Then we used Triss. Using Triss first, what did the team do? They killed the product backlog. Now they know how to kill it. Right? So now to invert it, it just took seconds for them to, you know, come up with thoughts. So this is a very powerful technique which Solutions IQ uses most commonly with all its customers. Just try it around. It's very good. So that's all. To summarize, it's like, you know, don't try to experiment too many things. First, understand your team. Get the context. Understand the background. Try the plain vanilla first. Use the good old techniques first. Then when you see, you know, that it has become habitual, the teams are losing interest, you add your own flavor to it. As a team, how do you want to do your retrospectives? It's like, you know, you go to Touch, Try, Star seven times. Your kids get bored. They say, okay, let us go to some other new hotel. So try that new hotel. You like it. You do, you know, stick it to it for some more time. Then you hear that something else is good. Then you go there. So take a buy-in from the team. Which technique do we use? What to do? Then, you know, retrospect. So in short, there's no one-line answer, you know, to say that, okay, this is the best technique or this is the best way to make your retrospectives effective. It's all about inspecting and adapting, talking to your teams and coming to a collective path. Young teams start with a good old basics. Yesterday we booked. Okay. And then once you understand the intent of the retrospective, then you know, try to add your own flavor, tweak it a little bit to make it more interesting. Try different things. Because without understanding the basic intent of retrospective, you just need to draw a picture, do something very complex. It becomes even more complicated. So I hope this session was useful. So again, the intent is not to say that, no, these, those six techniques, what I've put there, they are the prescriptive techniques. No. Look at your scenario. Look at the situation that you are in. Build a storyline around that sort. You can really think and act. So we have three more minutes for Q&A. If you have any questions, you know, we can always discuss. And you have a copy of the retrospectives, retrospectives book. You can, you know, take it with you. Okay. There's a copy of the book on each and every table. So you can just take it if you're interested. So you have any questions? You're open. Thank you.