So it’s at the end of the second day that I’m writing about my experiences at the Retrospective Gathering. I hope that this entry not only helps me to distil my thoughts, realisations, affirmations and respect for different opinions but I hope it helps other people understand what retrospectives are, how important they can be and why there is an entire conference dedicated to it.
I’ve attended and participated in several conferences in the past, and the gathering I’ve been part of two days so far feels very different to others I’ve attended. Perhaps part of it has to do with the size (26 or so people), or perhaps it has to do with a group of people sharing a common passion helping each other to learn and grow. Either way, I feel it doesn’t matter that you’ve published (or not published) any books, it doesn’t matter the number of times that you’ve attended, and it doesn’t matter how you choose to participate, as it feels like a safe environment to share experiences and push each other’s learning comfort zone.
We are running this particular gathering using open space rules and despite the small number of participants we get quite a few different streams of so many different topics. I will post a link to the area where we are currently collating results.
For me, even after only the second day, it has be a phenomenal learning experience. Despite everyone’s passions for the same thing, I’m fascinated how so many people found the role of retrospective facilitation through so many different paths. I think I’ve already come away with plenty of learnings that I will try to distil (so far) in the list below:
- Training and coaching other retrospective facilitators actually requires lots of thought and preparation – sometimes people aren’t or will never be completely suitable for running them but it doesn’t mean they can’t contribute to a valuable session with other facilitators.
- Despite my passion for the topics, I don’t think I’ve personally spent enough time promoting or encouraging retrospectives (or what I prefer to classify as continuous improvement at a company, team or individual level) in my company enough and I definitely will try more to when I get back.
- I learned a heck a lot more about Temperature Readings and I think I’ve addressed a lot of my fears and concerns about not using it inappropriately.
- Facilitating distributed retrospectives brings about a whole heap of its own obstacles and it’s good to have contributed to developing a toolkit for dealing with it.
- Gut feel plays an important part of the way facilitators seem to make decisions – though best practices may exist, judgement about when things are used and not used is more important than sticking to “best practices”.
There’s some really interesting resources I’ve accumulated so far, and at the end I will certainly ensure the list is put in one place, but here’s some of the items I’ve got to look into right now:
- Diffusion of Innovation
- Non Violent Communication
- The Elegant solution
- Innovation Games
- Corporate Cultural Survival Group
- Managing at the speed of Change
- Naming the Elephant
- Focused Questions
- New People Making
- Fearless Change
As always if you have managed to get this far, I would enjoy hearing your feedback, thoughts, opinions and questions on anything I’ve written about so far.
