Positive Retrospectives
The Agile leader can accelerate team growth by enabling members to appreciate what they like about working with each other.
Openness in Retrospectives can be challenging at first because the people are still feeling their way and learning to collaborate cross-functionally.
Bruce Tuckman’s team development stages inform us that when a group is progressing through its developmental journey into becoming a Performing team, it will go through the Storming stage. There could be expectations mismatch between team members, or ways of working between team members may not yet be compatible.
How effectively the team members can dissipate this excess “heat” and agree on norms that support collaborative behaviors will determine whether the group will continue towards the Norming and then Performing stages. Positive retrospective framing crtically address the basic human need to be included and appreciated as the group progresses towards becoming a team.
The Agile leader can accelerate team growth by enabling members to appreciate what they like about working with each other.
Frame retrospectives to open dialogue in the following areas
- Happy About: Share what you are pleased about how the team worked together in this Sprint.
- Thank you’s: Thank someone for what they did. Be specific. Here is a template – “I want to thank <person name> for <specific action> that helped me <impact>”
- Observations: Share judgment-free observations about the way we worked together.
- Suggestions for improvement: Ideas or insights that can help the group amplify what works well for them already.
Positive retrospectives focus people on each member’s strengths creates a climate of appreciation and directs action toward amplifying what is already working.
I have also used this framing in situations where the team may be going through a rough patch and needs to rediscover what they appreciate about each other.
As a leader, you can guide your team’s growth journey by creating conditions for support and growth. The feeling of being valued by peers is fundamental to human development, and enabling the team members to share what they like and appreciate about each other builds resilience through the rough patches every team goes through.
Try positive retrospectives framing for your next team event. Share your experience in comments below.
Learn More: The Agile Retrospectives book is a great resource for other impactful facilitation activities.
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