Fifty Quick Ideas
To Improve Your Retrospectives
About the book
Retrospectives have been the pulse of continuous improvement for teams since the boom in popularity of agile methods. For organisations who only inspected a project after it had delivered (or not), moving to a bi-weekly or monthly improvement cycle was a revolutionary shift, but why stop there? Unfortunately, many teams repeat the same process over and over so their retrospectives become flat, unrewarding and get discarded because they stop adding value. This can slow down or halt team improvement and demotivate team members.
Learn how to improve retrospectives and avoid stagnation, with fifty ideas fifty ideas designed to help you enhance and energise your continuous improvement effort. This book will help you get better outcomes from retrospectives and from any continuous improvement initiative. It will help you consider how best to prepare for retrospectives, generate innovative insights, achieve valuable outcomes, improve facilitation techniques, keep things fresh and maybe even how to have a bit of fun whilst doing it.
Who is this book for?
This book is for anyone who undertakes continuous improvement of any sort, especially those looking to get better outcomes from retrospectives, either as a participant, facilitator, coach or manager of teams. We include ideas for people with varying levels of experience. So, whether you are quite new to agile, Scrum and retrospectives, a veteran of continuous improvement looking to fine-tune or get new inspiration, or if your retrospectives have become a bit stale and need re-invigorating, there are ideas in here to support you.
Many of the ideas and concepts are universally applicable and will be of use to anyone trying to make improvements in any industry or walk of life. They are not limited to the confines of software development, where we work.
Who is this book not for?
This book is not for someone without any knowledge of retrospectives. We are making an assumption that our readers will understand what a retrospective is, as well as how to go about using them. If you have little or no experience participating in or facilitating retrospectives, please read another book first. There are plenty of good books and materials out there that introduce the basic processes and formats.
About the authors
Ben Williams is a product development and organisational change consultant. Ben helps organisations deliver real business value, consistently and faster. Applying a wide range of tools and techniques drawn predominantly from agile and lean disciplines, Ben coaches teams and leaders to appraise and refine their work systems. He is a regular speaker in the UK and internationally. Contact Ben at ben.williams@neuri.co.uk or follow him on Twitter @13enWilliams.
Tom Roden is a delivery coach, consultant and quality enthusiast, helping teams and people make the improvements needed to thrive and adapt to the ever changing demands of their environment. Tom specialises in agile coaching, testing and transformation. Contact Tom at tom.roden@neuri.com or follow him on Twitter.
Contact
For all information regarding translation rights, copyright or bulk discount, send us an e-mail at publishing@neuri.co.uk or write to
Neuri Consulting LLP25 Southampton Buildings
London WC2A 1AL
United Kingdom