Benefits of Agile Retrospectives
Hi guys, some time ago, I wrote a blog post where I listed 16 ways to explain what an Agile Retrospective is; this blog post can be found here.
I see this blog post as a complement to the previous one; in this blog post, I will explain the 7 fantastic business benefits that you will attain when you perform Agile Retrospectives. Together, these two blog posts provide a fantastic way to explain to everyone why we should have Agile Retrospectives.
Some times people tells me they have problems understanding why, every two weeks, the whole team stops for couple of hours only to play with post-its :) Some people have difficulty comprehending this ritual, and that´s why I think these two blog posts will be useful to you.
Agile Retrospectives as Team Energiser
An Agile Retrospective can often be used as a team energiser, an essential place where the team gets together and gets excited as they find new ways and new possibilities to use in tackling old problems.
Agile Retrospectives used for People to let go their frustration
An Agile Retrospective can be a place where the team feels safe and comfortable, allowing them to talk freely about their frustrations. This is highly beneficial, because with an Agile Retrospective, people have an “official” window of time in which to be listened to, and any human being loves (and needs) to be listened to.
Agile Retrospectives as a team build artefact
I personally use some of my Agile Retrospectives as a team building activity. Sometimes things get rough and its difficult to set them back on track; an Agile Retrospective is the perfect place to do a couple of team building activities in order to bring the harmony back to the team.
Agile Retrospectives used as a place to learn
One of the biggest problems that we as human beings have is that we do not stop to reflect (or at least not most of us do not). In order to learn, we must stop and reflect on what has happened. The Agile Retrospective is the perfect place for this to happen; it’s a place where everyone stops and reflects on what they did, allowing teams to grow and avoid making the same mistakes in the future.
Agile Retrospectives creates Continuous Improvement
As a continuation of the previous topic, an Agile Retrospective is a ritual that enable teams to create a continuous improvement culture, where they reflect on past experiences and define future actions. Typically Agile Retrospectives are on team level, but this could be expanded to different levels of the organisation allowing the company to improve the whole business, not just the work that is performed by development teams.
Agile Retrospectives increases Customer Value
Even if it is not done directly, Agile Retrospectives have influence on the value that is delivered to our customers. As I mentioned before, the main purpose of this ritual is to enable continuous improvement. This means that teams will get better over time, and as an outcome, they will figure out the most efficient way to deliver the best value to their customers.
Agile Retrospectives serve to Empower Teams
One of the nicest things about Agile Retrospectives (in my opinion) is the chance that they give teams to own their own decisions. This ritual provides an opportunity to empower teams (not in all cases, but in most); they own their own decisions and their own actions, creating a fantastic feeling of empowerment. They have full autonomy in changing anything related to their way of working.
I hope you liked this blog; if you have any comments, please let me know. :)
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Very Nice Article!! I believe you covered all the points that restrospectives support! the best I like is that its the time when the team releases its frustration and gets re energized to take up the next challenge, and it is supposedly the best time for bringing back the bonding in the team, if in case there have been issues… (by team building exercises or may be just a coffee together)
It reminds of a slogan of a Cafe where they say ” A lot can happen over a Coffee” I would like to replace it with ” A lot can happen over a restrospective” :-)
Thanks Leenu :)
Luis
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