Agile Retrospectives

Chapter 10 Make It So

Productive teams judge retrospectives by their results.

It would be lovely if we could just say “Make it so” for every change, like Captain Jean-Luc Picard on the Starship Enterprise. But “Make it so” isn’t enough. Action plans set the stage for results. Incorporating experiments into iteration work plans makes sure they receive attention. And sometimes it’s still not enough.

If you’ve ever tried to change a personal habit (nail biting, for example) you know that it’s virtually impossible unless you have something else to replace the old behavior. It’s easier to add a new behavior than extinguish an old one. The same is true for teams and organizations.

At their retrospective, Lynn’s team resolved to stop jumping into coding without a plan. But at the next iteration planning meeting, two team members popped open their laptops to share the code they’d worked on over the weekend. They believed they were giving the team a head start.

Lynn reminded everyone about their agreement and shared several ideas for planning that he’d read on an Agile discussion group. The team agreed to stick to their resolution and try Lynn’s ideas for planning. As the team began talking through the work they needed to do, the team realized that the code written over the weekend didn’t contribute to the team’s goal for the iteration— it was wasted effort.

Without a replacement (planning ideas, in this case), the team had no alternative but to fall back on their old behaviors. ...