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Martin Jul writes about a retrospective activity in the post “Retrospectives - Adapting to Reality.” He describes an interesting process for highlighting issues in the Generating Insights part of a retrospective session.

I’ve used “Park Bench” at the end of workshops as a way of reflecting on the day or as a debriefing technique after a training exercise to uncover group discoveries. You may be surprised that I hadn’t thought of it for retrospectives. I was. Luckily, Michael thought of it.

Today I invented a phrase (at least I think I invented it because I haven't heard anyone else say it): "Avoidable Heroism."

I invented it in response to a question, "Should my team work on the weekend to meet a commitment made under their control?"

Now, I don't know the background behind this question. Maybe it's perfectly reasonable for them to work on the weekend. Maybe they have no agreement about sustainable pace. And, it raises a few questions in my mind. How often does this happen? How far from the commitment are they? When was the first, best opportunity to...

Sometimes teams get stuck at the point of “deciding what to do” in retrospectives. Team members may begin to point fingers and describe things that the ubiquitous “they” must do before the team can move forward or make improvements,. This may lead to a team-as-victim, “poor us, we’re stuck” syndrome, or blame and finger-pointing. “It’s their fault we’re in this mess!” Blame kills retrospectives and the perception of persecution stalls any hope of forward motion, so the retrospective leader has to shift this conversation, and fast! Team members also may perceive so much room for improvement they become paralyzed and can’t decide where to start improving their lot.

When victim-talk, blaming or overwhelm surfaces, I reach into my retrospective leaders toolbox and pull out a technique to help teams identify the kinds of action the team can take.

In a comment on an article about Pixar in The Economist, Tom Agan from the Nielsen Company, writes:

"At The Nielsen Company we have just completed a study of the major consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies operating in the U.S. and those with standardized post mortems for new products, like Pixar, average almost 100% more revenue from new products compared to those that don't...I think through articles like this and new research that quantifies the impact, we are coming much closer to uncovering the universal truths of innovation."

I'm willing to put up with The Economist (and Pixar)...

When the rains came down and the flood waters rose in Nashville TN one month ago, it became clear the Agile Alliance would have to “respond to change” rather than “following the plan” for our annual Agile 2010 conference—with the conference scheduled to open in only 14 weeks.

While in Washington D.C. last month, for the first time I visited the U.S. Library of Congress. Guided by writer and experienced LoC researcher David Schmaltz, I received a temporary library card to research early management thought.

In the glorious reading room under its amazing dome, I held two precious books. One, an (out of print) copy of Mary Parker Follett’s Creative Experience is so old it didn’t have publication date or place data printed in it. However, a little diligent searching told me the edition I held was published in 1924. The book contains ideas offered...

In Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great!, Esther Derby and I include a collection of activities we called, “Short Subjects.”

After Gathering Data, these useful activities provide relatively quick ways to review event, effort, and response data; reflect on the implications of the data; and Generate Insights about team experiences.

Lately I’ve reinforced my interest in learning to learn. I get several benefits from it. First, I learn how to learn better for my own purposes. Second, I learn more about how other people learn. Third, if I apply what I learn about how other people learn, I can become a better consultant/coach/trainer. And, magically, fourth, I am liberated from needing to find a teacher to learn the things I’m interested in learning.

The reinforcement for my learning to learn comes in the form of “Where Are Your Keys?” or The Fluency Game. (Full disclosure: My son introduced me...

For some time, I’ve been ruminating on how to answer folks who query, “How do I convince people that Agile is better?”

I’ve been fortunate to have experienced many great team building moments, activities and events on several great teams. One of the best, involved feeding each other.

In Fearless Change, Mary Lynn Manns and Linda Rising counsel that a pattern called "Do Food" "makes an ordinary gathering a special event" and reference Christopher Alexander’s pattern "Communal Eating." Linda and Mary Lynn note, "sharing food plays a vital role in almost all human societies to bind people together and increase the feeling of group membership." Eating together has a long and documented history in building shared culture.

Derek Neighbor’s post about Patrick Leoncioni’s team dysfunctions model prompted me to share a model I developed many years ago for work with self-directing teams. Esther Derby and I use the model as part of our "Secrets of Agile Teamwork: Beyond Technical Skills" workshop.

Agile retrospectives aren’t just for teams or organizations. Individuals (like you and me) also use them as a way of taking stock and choosing how to move forward—reflecting, inspecting, and adapting to the changing conditions in our lives. Chronological milestones serve as a great prompts for a personal retrospective (e.g., year’s-end, birthday, anniversary, solstice, etc.).

We find ourselves at the end of 2009, looking toward 2010 with eager anticipation and/or reluctant anxiety. What a great time to retrospect!

First, plan your retrospective.

Where will you focus? Choose a focus or theme for the retrospective that holds meaning for...

Values vs. Principles vs. Practices in the Iron Cage of Death*: Three Go in, One Comes Out

Discussions about where to start with Agile approaches tend to devolve into “you got your practices in my values”...”no, you got your values in my practices.” Trying to bridge the gap, some folks say, “look at the principles for guidance.” None of these works.

In reality, we have to have it all. We need values to use as filters for our decisions. We need principles to give us ideas about what values look like when they come out of the clouds and into actual...

Tom Cagley posted an interview with me at his Software Process and Measurement-Cast blog. Tom begins the podcast with part 7 in his series of audio essays, "Traceability, A Radical Approach Based on User Involvement." The interview with me starts about 25% of the way in. We discuss Agile, Agile Adoptions, Retrospectives and upcoming events.