Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. Try to improve a little each sprint instead of trying to bring big changes at once. A small action that brings a small improvements is already very good. Remember: you will not always have big live changing action items in each retrospective. You want to have 1 – 2 action items at the end of the retrospective that you can implement in the next iteration(s). Don’t focus too much on external people or factors, but mainly on the things that are within the control of the team to identify improvement actions that the team is able to take. While having the discussion on a topic, always focus on what’s within the control of the team. It’s important that everything you are discussing in the “Helping us”, “Holding us back” and “Obstacles” categories are related to the overall goal that you are trying to achieve as a team. After this, you can do a quick dot voting session to determine the most important one(s) and start with a discussion on those.įirst discuss all the post-its in the “Destination” category and come to a conclusion of the goal of the team before discussing the other stages. “Obstacles”: what risks do we see in the future, that could prevent us from reaching the goal? Something that we see happening, but is not yet happening to us today.Īfter explaining the stages to your team, give everybody a few minutes to write down their thoughts on a post-it.“Holding us back”: what is currently holding us back, slowing us down, or preventing us to reach our goal?.
“Helping us”: what is currently helping us on our road to achieving this goal? What should we keep doing?.What are we striving for? As mentioned above, this can be something related to the product that you are building, or it can be something related to the way of working within the team. “Our destination”: what’s our goal? This should be the main theme for the retrospective.Start with the cluster with the most votes: Discuss the topic and define action(s).The sailboat retrospective consists of two rounds: Depending on the number of groups, everyone gets 2-3 votes. Together, determine the headings for the groups.Įveryone votes for the groups. Use the "Gathering Insights and Defining Actions" frame.Ĭopy the cards from "Gathering Topics," discuss how they can be grouped, and then group them. Step 3: Getting Insights and defining Actions There may also be icebergs (impediments) that you don't expect."Įach participant writes 2-3 cards and places each card in an appropriate position in the picture.Īfterward, everyone briefly says what they wrote on the card. Some things move you forward (wind, engine, good navigation) and things that stop you (bad weather, someone has dropped anchor). Introduce the activity: "Imagine that your last sprint was a ship's voyage. Then do a short round where everyone briefly says why they chose that particular image. Have participants mark the respective boat image with a sticky note with their name. Which ship would you be right now and why?" Use the frame "Setting the Stage" for a small warm-up.Īsk participants the following: "Imagine you are a ship. The time you need depends on the team size, but please plan at least 60 minutes. The anchor / the thunderstorm: Things that stopped or hindered the team
The sails, the engine, the wind: Things that helped the team to move forward The Boat: It symbolizes the individuals and the team itself The template works with metaphors around sailing:
The template supports the retrospective phases “Setting the stage”, “Gathering data”, “Getting Insights”, “Defining Actions”, and “Closing”. Then, based on their reflections, actions can be defined. The team can identify what went right, what went wrong, and what impediments they are facing. The template provides a fun, interactive, and easy way for your team to reflect. The purpose of a retrospective is to inspect and adapt concerning individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and quality.