One of the things I like most about Agile project management are the retrospectives.  I do understand that they can sometimes feel onerous, or frequently have folks complaining about yet another meeting, but they allow us to do something to ourselves that we’re doing for our systems - continually improve.

Many of us are constantly focused on questions like “how do I make salesforce easier to use?” or “how do I ensure new hires can get their equipment faster?”.  These questions are all basically a variation of “how do I continuously improve where I work?”.  Many of us keep grinding away answering that question without taking (or making) time to step back.  Retrospectives are our chance to change that question to “how do I continuously improve how I work?”.

Continual improvement is something we can do on our own, but I find it takes a LOT of willpower and energy.  Critically examining my own work, habits, etc. is hard!  Having a safe group to help me with this makes this a lot easier.  There are, however, some ground rules that have to be followed:

1. Honest collaboration - everyone on the team has to have a mindset of helping the group improve.  This isn’t an opportunity to blame Sally for that fire she caused, or Sam for forgetting to push an update.  It’s an opportunity to identify ways to prevent the next fire from happening.

2. Everyone contributes - These meetings can easily be dominated by one or two voices.  While they may have good points or ideas, there’s the rest of the team that doesn’t have a chance to share their insight.  Everyone on the team has expertise and experience they can bring to the table if we just let them.

3. Document it - Once you’ve got the time set aside and the ideas flowing it needs to be documented… after all, it doesn’t help anyone if you take that time and then forget what you learned.

4. Make it regular - This isn’t a one time thing.  Time should be taken for continual improvement on a regular basis.  Making this habit part of your working cycle will help everyone get involved and begin moving towards better versions of themselves.

 Exactly what these retrospectives looks like can differ, but the end goal is the same… making time to ensure the team is able to both improve the product, but also to improve themselves.