Retrospective is an important event in Agile. In fact, I’d say the most important one. This is a meeting where the team finds out what they could have done better and what the improvement items are. Not only that, they will also have an execution plan to take up the improvement items.
At this point, it’s important to note that retrospectives and lessons learned meetings are not same! Retrospective also differs from intraspectives. While lessons learning meetings are conducted to identify and share the lessons learned in a project, phase or iteration to improve, retrospectives, on the other hand, are recurring events in Lean-Agile to explore the work done and improve based on the results. For for Scrum, it is at the end of the Sprint, whereas for Kanban, it’s can be based on cadence. Nevertheless, one can say retrospective is a form of lessons learned meetings.
A Retrospective Board
The quickest way to take the retrospective items and implement them is by using the Retrospective Boards. The simplest ones are with the following columns in the board:
- Stop doing, Start doing, Keep doing (or simply StoStaKee)
- Stop, Start, Stay (or SSS, Triple S)
- Same as, More of, Less of (or SAMOLO)
The above concepts are taken from ACP Live Lessons - Guranteed Pass. Let’s take the first one of StoStaKee. A sample board can be shown as below.
For this article, our focus is on the items which we want to do or execute the improvement items, which are in the “Start Doing” column.
These items will be taken into our Hybrid-Agile plan, put into the Retrospective Board and be executed. I’d strongly recommend that you check this article of Hybrid-Scrum management, before going deeper into this article.
Current Scenario: Our Hybrid-Scrum Project
We will take the plan from our earlier Hybrid-Scrum project, where we have multiple Sprints planned along with the predictive/waterfall elements. One of the Sprints is complete and at the end of the Sprint quite a few retrospective items were decided to be taken-up. This is shown in the below figure.
As shown in the multi-Sprints Scrum Development phase, we have completed Sprint 1. In the next Sprint’s (Sprint 2) planning meeting, the retrospective items that can be executed will be taken-up and planned for.
Next, let’s proceed with our creation of the Retrospective Board with MS Project Agile software tool. The board will have the retro work items. We will have the following steps.
Create isRetro Custom Field
As shown, first you have to create the isRetro custom field. It’s a Boolean Field.
You don’t have to change the:
- Custom attributes
- Calculation for assignment rows
- Values to display
Just keep it simple, though further customization can be done.
Create a Retro Board Filter
Next, we will use the Retro Board Filter, a new custom filter. This can be created by going to View tab > Data group > Filter option > More Filter dialog box. In the opened-up box click on the “New…” command to create a new filter.
As shown below, the new filter created is Retro Board filter.
The above filter has the following parameters:
- Show on Board is “Yes” or enabled.
- Summary (Tasks) is “No” or disabled.
- %Work Complete is 100%, i.e., incomplete work items will be shown.
- Active is “Yes”, i.e., only Active tasks will be shown.
- isRetro custom field is enabled for this filter. We have created this custom field before.
Create the Retro Board
Next, we will create the Retro Board, which will internally have the Retro Board filter that we just created.
To create such a board, go to View tab > Task Views group > Task Board drop down > More Views… command. This will open-up the More Views dialog box, where you can create a new Retro Board using the “New…” command.
As shown below, we have the Retro Board view available with the Retro Board Filter applied. Don’t forget to apply this filter.
Ensure to enable the “Show in menu” option, which helps in showing the Board when you quickly need it.
Add the Retrospective Items
As and when retrospectives happen in your Hybrid-Scrum project, you can add the improvement work items into the task items and hence the board. For this purpose, I’ll have another summary task and put all my retrospective items under that summary task.
Now, you may be wondering why not keep these items as parts of the Sprint? You can! But it’s not very effective. Also, you really don’t know which items will be taken in which Sprint. Do you? Rather, the items will be prioritized and then taken.
As shown below I’ve a summary task Retrospective Items, under which I’ve a number of retrospective work items.
Also, as you can see in the above figure:
- No Sprint has been associated with the Retro work items.
- The Show on Board field has been enabled.
- The duration is not decided for the work items.
We can’t decide on the work items’ duration as that will happen during the upcoming Sprint’s planning meeting. Also, it’s a good idea and practice not to take more than 3 items for the upcoming Sprint. As I’ve seen, effectively, a Scrum Team can complete at most one or two items for an upcoming short Sprint of 2-week duration.
Next, we are going to visualize these work items in the newly created Retro Board.
The concluding part of this article is available here.
References
[1] Online Course: ACP Live Lessons – Guaranteed Pass or Your Full Money Back, by Satya Narayan Dash
[2] Certification Course: Certified Hybrid-Agile Master Professional (CHAMP), by Satya Narayan Dash
[3] Scrum and Microsoft Project: Agile Project Management Training, by MPUG.com
[4] Online Course: Mastering MS Project Agile, by Satya Narayan Dash
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