The Retrospective Handbook: A guide for agile teams

Are you running retrospectives regularly? Perhaps you run retrospectives once a week, or fortnightly. Do you feel like you could be getting more out of your retrospectives and fuelling continuous improvement in your teams? You may already find retrospectives valuable, but suspect there are ways of making them better. This book condenses down eight years of experience working with the retrospective practice within the context of real agile teams. It offers you practice advice on how to make your retrospectives even more effective including topics such as:

• Best methods to prepare for a retrospective
• Picking just the right materials
• Facilitating retrospectives with ease
• Dealing with common retrospective smells
• Retrospectives in different contexts including distributed, large and small groups
• A checklist for preparation
• Ensuring retrospectives result in change

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Retrospective Fundamentals
Chapter 2. Preparing for Retrospectives
Chapter 3. Facilitating Retrospectives
Chapter 4. First-Time Facilitation Tips
Chapter 5. Distributed Retrospectives
Chapter 6. Other Flavours of Retrospectives
Chapter 7. After the Retrospective
Chapter 8. Common Retrospective Smells
Chapter 9. Keeping Retrospectives Fresh
Chapter 10. Concluding

Appendix A. Retrospective Activities
Appendix B. Resources to Becoming a Better Facilitator
Appendix C. References