05_Sprint Retrospective Meeting - Facts & Rules

Source:  Agile Project Management with Scrum by Ken Schwaber

 

Duration:

 

1.       Time-boxed to 03 Hours (Three Hrs).

2.       Occurs after Sprint Review & Before Next Sprint Planning meeting.

  

Attendees:

 

3.       Team, Scrum Master, and Product Owner.

4.       The Product Owner is optional

 

 Retrospective Procedure

 

5.       All Team members answer two questions:

a.       What went well during the last Sprint?

b.       What could be improved in the next Sprint?

 

6.       Also team members can think on four Short Subjects:

a.       Start Doing

b.       Stop Doing

c.        Do More

d.       Do Less

 

7.       The Scrum Master writes down the Team’s answers in summary form.

8.       Scrum Master does not provide answers, but facilitate the Team’s search for better ways for the Scrum process to work for it.

 

Action Items – At The End

 

9.       The Team prioritizes in which order it wants to talk about the potential improvements.

10.    Actionable items that can be added to the next Sprint should be devised as high-priority non-functional Product Backlog.

 

More Details On Retrospective

 

11.    Type of Retrospectives

a.       Iteration Retrospective

b.       Release Retrospective

c.        Project Retrospective

d.       Surprise Retrospective

 

12.    Retrospectives Improvements: Retrospective offers multiple improvements.

a.       Improved Productivity

b.       Improved Capability

c.        Improved Quality

d.       Improved Capacity

 

13.    Steps to Conduct Retrospectives

a.       Set the Stage

In this step, aim at creating an atmosphere where people feel comfortable speaking about things that may not have gone well on the project.

 

Few techniques:

·         Check-In

·         Focus On/Focus Off

·         ESVP - Explorers, Shoppers, Vacationers, Prisoners

·         Working Agreements

 

 

b.       Gather Data

Create a shared picture of what happened during the iteration.

 

Few techniques:

·         Timeline

·         Triple Nickels

·         Mad, Sad, Glad

·         Local Strength

·         Satisfaction Histograms

·         Team Radar

·         Like to Like

 

 

c.        Generate Insights

This step involves driving meaning insights from the gathered data in previous step and make sense out of it.

Activities done in this step help team interpret and understand implications of the issues before then move on to solving them.

 

Few techniques:

·         Brainstorming

·         Five Whys

·         Fishbone

·         Prioritize with Dots

·         Identify Themes

 

d.       Decide What To do

                        In this step, team will decide what they will change and how they will behave differently.

 

Few techniques:

·         Short Subjects - Start Doing, Stop Doing, Do More, Do Less

·         SMART Goals

·         Retrospective Planning Games

·         Circle Of Questions

 

 

e.       Close Retrospective

                        Here team summarizes:

·         What the team decided to keep

·         What to change

·         What we are thankful for

·         Where we can use our time going forward

·         Express Appreciation to each other

 

Few techniques:

·         Plus/Delta

·         Helped, Hindered, Hypothesis

·         ROTI (Return on Time Invested)

·         Appreciations

 

 

Keep Blogging...

 

Regards,

Arun Manglick

 

RE: Agile Estimation & Team Velocity

Here is an example of Agile Estimation & Team Velocity:

 

Assumption:

 

Resource Count: 8

Sprint - 4 Weeks (20 Days)

Team Velocity: 2000 Points

Per Sprint Per Resource Velocity: 250 Points

Productive Hours (Per Day): 6.5 Hrs

 

Story Sizes:

	Story Points	Days	Range (In Days)
Low	10	0.5	0.5-1 Day
Low-Medium	20	1.5	1-2 Days
Medium	30	2.5	2-3 Days
High	50	4.5	4-5 Days

 

 

Resource	Sprint Duration (4 weeks)	Velocity (Points)	Per Resource (Points) In 4 Weeks Sprint
8	20	2000	250

 

Below demonstrate kind of proper distribution of stories based on their point based estimate and days based estimate totaling to 2000 Points and 20 Days.

Well there is not necessarily directly proportional relation between story points and days.

 

However I tried demonstrating the same to justify Point Based & Days Based Estimation equally.

 

Estimate (In Days)	4.5	2.5	1.5	0.5	Days	Points (Per Resource)	Hours (6.5)
Estimate (In Points)	50	30	20	10
Resource 1	2	2	2	5	20	250	127
Resource 2	3	1	1	5	20	250	130
Resource 3	3	1	1	5	20	250	130
Resource 4	3	1	1	5	20	250	130
Resource 5	3	1	1	5	20	250	130
Resource 6	3	1	1	5	20	250	130
Resource 7	3	1	1	5	20	250	130
Resource 8	3	1	1	5	20	250	130
Total Stories	23	9	9	40	81	2000	1037
Total Points	1150	270	180	400	2000

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Arun Manglick

 

Agile Estimation & Team Velocity

Here is an example of Agile Estimation & Team Velocity:

 

Assumption:

 

Resource Count: 8

Sprint - 4 Weeks (20 Days)

Team Velocity: 2000 Points

Per Sprint Per Resource Velocity: 250 Points

 

Story Sizes:

	Story Points	Days	Range (In Days)
Low	10	0.5	0.5-1 Day
Low-Medium	20	1.5	1-2 Days
Medium	30	2.5	2-3 Days
High	50	4.5	4-5 Days

 

 

Resource	Sprint Duration (4 weeks)	Velocity (Points)	Per Resource (Points) In 4 Weeks Sprint
8	20	2000	250

 

Below demonstrate kind of proper distribution of stories based on their point based estimate and days based estimate totaling to 2000 Points and 20 Days.

Well there is not necessarily directly proportional relation between story points and days.

 

However I tried demonstrating the same to justify Point Based & Days Based Estimation equally.

 

Estimate (In Days)	4.5	2.5	1.5	0.5	Days	Points (Per Resource)
Estimate (In Points)	50	30	20	10
Resource 1	2	2	2	5	19.50	250
Resource 2	3	1	1	5	20.00	250
Resource 3	2	2	2	5	19.50	250
Resource 4	2	1	3	6	19.00	250
Resource 5	2	2	2	5	19.50	250
Resource 6	3	1	1	5	20.00	250
Resource 7	3	1	1	5	20.00	250
Resource 8	2	2	2	5	19.50	250
Total Stories	19	12	14	41	86	2000
Total Points	950	360	280	410	2000

 

 

Hope this helps.

 

Arun Manglick