At DeepAgile2010 this past weekend Mike McCollough led a session on Retrospective Games. We played a brand new game called Balloon Madness as an excuse to use several different retrospective formats. The game is in the conference booklet but is not yet posted on TastyCupcakes (check site for lot’s of fun Agile learning games).

What I learned about retrospectives

• Change the format on a regular basis. One attendee switches things up every retrospective.
• You can get great results by focussing on more of what works. This is inspired by appreciative inquiry. We are so used to looking at what the problem is, that looking at success can have a powerful shift.
• Another was to have each person write a personal commitment story card for something to do in the next iteration. They signed the card and someone else agreed to pair with them on it to provide support. The cards were posted beside the scrum board as a reminder. They were reviewed at the start of the following retrospective.
• Liked-Lacked-LongedFor was also suggested as a powerful way to connect with people’s deeper selves.

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