Continuous Retrospectives Linda Rising linda@lindarising.org - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Continuous Retrospectives

Linda Rising

linda@lindarising.org www.lindarising.org @RisingLinda

Now out ☺ ☺!

Fearless Journey Game

1998 My first retrospective

Is that a postmortem?

Project Retrospectives

A retrospective is an

• pportunity for

the participants to learn how to

• improve. The

focus is on learning—not fault-finding.

Norm Kerth

What a retrospective isn’t

No naming, no blaming-- naming and praising is encouraged!) Kerth’s Prime Directive:

Regardless of what we discover, we must

understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.

February 2001 At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly. agilemanifesto.org/principles.html

Agile Retrospectives

How to mine the experience of your software development team CONTINUALLY throughout the life

• f the project.

Insight ~ what others think

Areas of the brain involved in thinking about the future are the same areas involved in thinking about what others are thinking. Right temporoparietal junction RTPJ. Takes a long time to develop ~age 5. To encourage insights, take time off, let the mind wander, listen to others, take another point of view—have a retrospective ☺ ☺! See Rebecca Saxe on TED.com

Concrete Action Plan

• New pattern in More Fearless Change
• Positive images insufficient
• Mental contrasting +
• Implementation intention

Peter Gollwitzer & Gabriele Oettingen

Cognitive neuroscience

• Move
• Take a break
• Sleep, naps
• Eat/drink (careful of caffeine)
• Nature
• Environment (animals, babies, plants)

Downsides of meeting retros

• Sitting
• No natural light
• Time-boxed
• Struggle to remember
• Focus on action items – typically sunny

day thinking

FlowCon 2013

• Continuous delivery, continuous

integration, continuous testing…

• Continuous retrospectives????
• I’ve got it backwards! Stop moving

cognitive neuroscience into retros, instead change retros to take advantage

• f cognitive neuroscience ☺

☺!

But…how to implement it?

• Small experiments…
• Start with the timeline…

Do the timeline in real-time

• At the start of each iteration, start the timeline
• Do daily stand-ups, other meetings,

discussions in front of the timeline

• CONTINUOUSLY post events, ideas for

experiments, etc. on or near the timeline

• CONTINUOUSLY reflect and share: what

went well, what should be done differently – small experiments, puzzles, insights

Which System?

System 1: Unconscious (not Freud’s), fast, intuitive/emotional (biased), can multi-task, remembers everything, BUT inaccessible System 2: Conscious, slow, rational, linear, forgetful, chatters constantly while awake, takes energy Both are valuable. Use the one that’s appropriate

Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow

Confirmation bias

• The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on,

and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.

• The best hope for addressing this bias is

awareness and interacting with diverse others

• Continuously reflecting and interacting with
• thers will test our views and encourage

awareness of different viewpoints

Charles Darwin

…whenever a published fact, a new observation or thought came across me, which was opposed to my general results, [I made] a memorandum of it without fail and at once; for I had found by experience that such facts and thoughts were far more apt to escape from the memory than favourable ones. Owing to this habit, very few

• bjections were raised against my views which I

had not at least noticed and attempted to answer. (Darwin’s timeline)

How continuous reflection works

• Unconscious mind is involved 24/7
• Taking a break, sleeping on it
• Walking
• Listening to diverse others
• Posting reduces cognitive load -

Zeigarnik effect

Current prescriptions for change routinely recommend destabilizing, disruptive approaches. These approaches may be pulled off once, or at most a few times, but repeated attempts to undergo massive change result in burnout, cynicism, and chaos. The Marines have dedicated groups exploring new

• approaches. As this research pays off in workable concepts,

the new ideas are incorporated into Marine practices on an

• ngoing basis. Thus, the Corps is undergoing constant,

gradual change. Even though the change can ultimately be significant, it tends to happen one small step at a time. David Freedman, Corps Business: the 30 management principles of the U.S. Marines

Self-affirmation

• As reflection becomes continuous we will

hopefully begin to include consideration

• f values and goals.
• Including this practice for only a few

minutes each day shows benefits.

• We talk about the end product – the

Agile Manifesto – but not so much about the process – determining values

Francesca Gino & Bradley Staats

• Wipro study asked test group of employees going

through training to spend last 15 minutes writing about, reflecting on lessons learned that day. (Their personal timelines.)

• Control group kept working for 15 minutes. Did

not receive additional training.

• Reflection group increased performance on final

test by an average of 22.8% over the control group.

Do we need all three?

• Yes!
• Project – strategic
• Iteration – tactical
• Continuous – small experiments

Try your own experiments

Use patterns from Fearless Change & More Fearless Change:

• Just Do It
• Time for Reflection
• Small Successes
• Baby Steps

Thanks for listening!