One More Retro

Hey Miro users!

I'd like to share the Retro template we use in Business Technology team here at Miro. The goal of inventing one more template was to make retros more enjoyable, productive, and to match with our team culture.

Memes

As memes are a huge part of our team (we really like memes!), I decided to use them as an Ice-breaker. All team members can share their emotions and feelings about how the sprint went. Memes are just a tool, the main goal of the Ice-breaker at the beginning of the retro is to let emotions go, to let everybody express their feelings about the sprint and capture those feelings somehow. This makes the rest of the retro more thoughtful and productive.

Inputs

The next part is to show everyone the objective and measurable results of the sprint. In our retros, I place a screenshot of the Confluence page with the sprint goals marked as failed or succeeded and a burndown chart of the sprint. This frame shows a different side of the sprint. No emotions, no feelings, just pure facts. Also, it's a nice place to put agreements and action points from the previous retro to check whether the team follows them or not.

Reflection

Then it is time to reflect on the sprint. We usually use "What should I/the team continue doing?" and "What held me/us back?" questions. I think question choice is critical here as this frame should not be a place where everyone just shares what went well or wrong. It is time to reflect on why something went good or wrong! Also, it is nice to restrict the stickers number a team member can place in each column. It will force team members to share the most important ideas. It is fine to create more ideas, but in the end, let everyone choose the most important ones.

Voting

The next step is to go through all stickers from the previous step, ask questions about unclear tickets, and group similar ones. And then vote for the most important ones. By "important" I mean ideas that you really want to discuss with the whole team, and you think you might come up with some agreement or action point. There is no time to discuss everything in the world.

After voting, please move the most-voted ideas to the next frame.

Synthesis

Finally, it is time to discuss something together! Go through the most-voted ideas, let everybody share their thoughts on them and try to come up with team agreements and/or action points.

Feedback

Now, after all the reflection the team made it is time to rate the sprint and the retro itself. Feedback on retro can be used for improving retro next time. And feedback on the sprint is just for statistics.

P.S.

Please, remember that the purposed retro template won't be suitable for all retros and for all teams.