Ajit and I ran a mini-retrospective for one of the inception activities we just finished. We kept it simple, skipping a safety check, and running a simple two column Prouds/Sads activity. It lasted about twenty minutes and we came away with some key learnings that I know have helped at least one other person since then, making the time completely worth it.

We focused on a short brainstorming phase, noting items for both columns and skipped sticky notes all together, writing them directly on to a whiteboard wall. We then moved into a discussion phase talking about what we wrote up, noting additional ideas as we talked about them. We focused less on action items, and focused on mining tips and ideas that other people running inception activities might benefit from.

We ran it extremely informally since we’ve both used these practice many times before, and share a high degree of trust and safety. If I’d been working with someone else who I’d never worked with before, or someone who’d never participated in a retrospective, I would’ve looked much harder for an independent facilitator and suggested a little bit more structure. I think this was only possible because we’d been through the ritual many times before, and the frequent practice helped us tap into the more effective parts much more quickly.