To stay competitive, businesses today must change and conform to the latest standards on a nearly real-time basis.This calls for increased focus on developing and establishing the traits of flexibility and adaptability into all levels of the workforce hierarchy. As an emerging leader, the responsibility of cultivating these two traits often falls on your shoulders.Adaptability and flexibility: A quick refresherAt this point in your career, being offered insight into what adaptability entails might seem superfluous. However, even experienced leaders can overlook important nuances that come with adaptability and need a refresher from time to time.In the business sense of the word, adaptability entails being open to new ideas and concepts, being able to work on an independent basis or with a team as the situation demands, and juggling multiple projects without getting flummoxed when conditions abruptly change. The ability or degree of willingness to which one adapts in such situations essentially determines ones level of flexibility and possibly the heights they will achieve in the future.With a basic refresher under your belt, lets move on to building your workforce. Here well take a look at four skills to nurture as you embark on developing your teams ability to adapt:1.Think creativelyYour team should be encouraged to explore different avenues for fostering creativity and accomplishing work goals with a new mindset. Those who tend to stick to the same tried-and-true methods are likely to have decreased flexibility and will resist change. Be prepared to give your team a little extra effort.2.Embrace ambiguityIt is key for companies to encourage an environment where change is embraced, even when ambiguity is involved. Traditionally, companies tend to cut down on innovation when uncertainty is present; instead, it needs to be welcomed. A conscious effort should be made to maintain a positive mindset and to come up with new ways of seeing and doing things.3.Exercise emotional intelligenceA much-discussed focus of self-management skills courses, particularly those offered in graduate business programs, emotional intelligence means controlling and filtering ones emotions in a constructive manner. This leads to easier adaptation when working with new teams and developing a better rapport with colleagues.4.Shift focusThe ability to maintain or shift focus in accordance with an organizations changing priorities is another critical skill that indicates higher levels of adaptability and flexibility in employees. Those who maintain consistent focus on individual- and team-based operational goals while using creative and critical thinking processes to solve challenges are critical in a dynamic environment.These are some of the top elements for building a workforce that is adaptable and flexible.As an emerging leader, likely you are aware of them on a subconscious level and employ them personally. However, when you're ready to nurture these traits at an organizational level, be sure to outline your approach properly and form a quantitative plan to increase change tolerance levels in your company.Like a workout at the gym, theres a right way and a wrong way to build flexibility, and a careful plan is always the right way.Simon T. Bailey is CEO of Brilliance Institute, which consults with individuals and organizations. He is the former sales director of the Disney Institute and author of the new book "Shift Your Brilliance Harness the Power of You, Inc.," the sequel to his bestseller "Release Your Brilliance."

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What is adaptability? What is flexibility? Impairments that may impact on the ability to be flexible Inclusive strategies Assessment Other employability skills affected by flexibility Resources/references

What is adaptability?

Adaptability means being flexible when things change. An adaptable person is one who is open to new ideas and concepts, to working independently or as part of a team, and to carrying out multiple tasks or projects. Someone is regarded as adaptable if they are able to manage multiple assignments and tasks, set priorities, and adapt to changing conditions and/or work assignments.

What is flexibility?

An agile mindset allows us to evaluate and then adjust to the different roles, responsibilities and jobs that we have each day. Adopting a flexible approach to study, work and life is more likely to enable us to achieve success than maintaining a rigid outlook or set of beliefs. People who are flexible are open to change and are able to adapt and adjust continuously to changing circumstances. Mental agility of this kind enables us to be more effective as problem solvers and problem finders - flexibility and creativity often go hand in hand.

Flexibility is extremely important for negotiating and communicating. The ability to acknowledge anothers point of view, and perhaps modify ones own accordingly, is essential for effective teamwork. As the term suggests, the ability to adopt a flexible approach is not static, it fluctuates according to mood and the circumstances that we find ourselves in. We can enhance our flexibility by deliberately adopting some of the following strategies:

Changing the context; Trying something new; Questioning our thoughts and words; Planning to be spontaneous; Deliberately trying to think in different ways.

Limited flexibility may cause difficulties with the following:

Solving problems creatively and adapting to novel situations or dynamic/changing situations; Dealing with uncertain, unanticipated or unpredictable work situations; Learning new tasks, technologies, and procedures; Interpersonal adaptability: for example adapting interpersonal behaviour to work effectively with a new team; Cultural adaptability which requires the ability to perform effectively in different cultures and environments; Demonstrating physically oriented adaptability which involves adapting to various physical factors such heat, noise, uncomfortable climates, and difficult environments.Back to topImpairments that may impact on flexibility include the following:

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) Autistic Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Mental Health Difficulties (MHDs)

Although most people depend on flexibility for adaptability skills, this does not mean that people who have difficulty being flexible cannot possess the skill; rather, they may need reasonable adjustments to practice to enable them to develop or evidence the skill.

Inclusive strategies

The experience and characteristics of different impairments/conditions are highly variable between individuals. For this reason it is really important that you never make assumptions about what a person can or cannot do. Though someone may have significant difficulties, they may also have devised sophisticated means of compensating for these, so talk to the person concerned and make judgements only on an individual basis.

Create an atmosphere that is open, supportive and welcoming of new ideas. Help each individual to feel that they are valued members of a community. Encourage risk taking together with risk management. Some people (for example, those with autism) rely heavily on routines as a source of security and comfort and dislike sudden change. Let people know well in advance about changes to routines in order to let them adjust to the idea and to avoid upsetting them. For those who have difficulty focusing on appropriate detail or who are easily distracted, provide a working environment that is not too busy, e.g. by screening off desk space. Some people with Mental Health Difficulties may be affected by prescribed medication which can affect concentration or make them feel excessively tired; they may need more time and support to adjust to changing situations. People with autism frequently demonstrate misunderstanding or naivety within social interactions and may have difficulty interacting with their peers and teachers/trainers. Provide these individuals with clear routines and written guidance on procedures. One in four people in the UK experience Mental Health Difficulties at some point in their lives do not write someone off because they happen to be ill at this time. Depression, stress and anxiety are the most common types of mental illness. It is common for people with these feelings to lack confidence and have low self-esteem despite having the same full range of intellectual abilities as the population as a whole. Maximise opportunities for success by assigning tasks that are neither too easy nor too difficult. Encourage individuals to find strategies that work best for them and enable them to become independent in their learning or work. Ensure that the individual knows who they should speak with within the organisation for more support.

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Assessment

Remember that people with the same impairments may need different adjustments to practice to enable them to engage with the assessment process and demonstrate their learning.

When assessing your learners, be very clear about exactly what it is you are testing. For example, in asking learners to write an essay in an exam, are you testing the learners knowledge and understanding of the topic, or the ability to write clearly and precisely? Decide what you are assessing, how many marks are apportioned for each element (knowledge or good writing, memory or understanding), and ensure that students are clear about these criteria.

Consider why you are assessing in a particular way and whether or not another method may be more inclusive. In some cases, the exact format of the assessment is critical to the demonstration of the intended learning outcome (for example, a course in hairdressing would require a practical demonstration of competence), but aim to allow your learners to have a choice about how they demonstrate their knowledge and skills whenever possible; in other words allow them to demonstrate their knowledge and skills using a variety of formats.

There may be occasions where you have provided the disabled learner with an alternative assessment (for example, a blind learner may need to give their answers orally rather than in writing). In such cases, you should ensure the integrity of the alternative assessment and make sure that the disabled learner is judged on their ability to meet the criteria providing neither a disadvantage nor an advantage over other learners.

In addition toadaptability, limitedflexibilityis likely to affect the following:

Teamwork Problem Solving Work Under Pressure

Resources/references

Adaptability in the Workplace: Development of a Taxonomy of Adaptive Performance:Pulakos, D. et al:

Centre of Excellence in Interdisciplinary Mental Health (CEIMH): This website provides a variety of high quality, freely available, flexible, teaching and learning resources that have been developed through CEIMH sponsored projects.

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Adaptability. The ability to change (or be changed) to fit changed circumstances.Otherwise known as the key to success at work!Being adaptable is a timelessly important skill, yet my college professors never emphasized its importance. Things are always changing at work the economy is up and down, new competitors are popping up out of nowhere, coworkers come and go, and priorities shift. If you can whether the storm of changes and manage to continue producing solid work, you will prove your worth 10 times over as anemployee.Changing to Manage ProcessesIn myfirst job, the company changed processes quite often. Growing pains, employee turnover, and a host of other factors caused the changes in processes, but at the end of the day,I had to manage myself through the changes rather than preventing them. Changing systems can be incredibly frustrating. Just when you get in the swing of doing things one way, your manager asks you to do it differently.If your company, too, changes processes often, try keeping a log of how management is asking for a certain task to be done. It will keep you on track to make sure youre doing it right. Also, (after giving it due time!) if you notice a particular change makes things less efficient, document a specific example of how, and find an appropriate time to inform management. Your boss will almost always be glad to listen to your input if you bring a solution to the table with you that is low effort and that you (not your manager) can lead. Be careful not to complain, but instead focus on increasing productivity.One thing I didnt realize until working at my first job out of college is that no company ever has the perfect system. Most companies (even the established ones!) figure things out by trial and error. Instead of getting frustrated about yet another company change, however big or small, think of it as a learning experience and as an opportunity for your voice to be heard by presenting solutions. For example, when I was in charge of our company email blasts to clients, I found that our new process was overly time consuming and there were several formatting issues using the suggested template. Rather than get frustrated about the process, I did a little research and presented a solution to my boss to have customizable company branded templates created. Although there was a production charge for the templates, I was able to show that the reduction in time for each email blast, in addition to having a more professional-looking template, offset the cost to have them created.Changing to Manage PeopleAbove and beyond being adaptable to company changes, its also important to be able to do things a little differently depending on who youre working with. Taking the time to learn how people like to work, and modifying your work style to accommodate them, makes a world of difference. Some people are auditory learners and prefer discussions while others are very visual and needpowerpoint. Some managers are hands-off as long as you get your work done while others are hands on and want a daily report. You will find some colleagues respond better when you speak to them face-to-face while others preferemail communication.Whether its using a table in word instead of a spreadsheet in excel, small changes make a big difference. I had one manager who hated opening attachments on her phone and could never figure out how. This made it tough for her to get to information quickly and she became frustrated with me whenever I sent an email, regardless of the content of what I sent. Just the small change of pasting the text of a document into the body of an email rather than including it as an attachment for her when she was working from the road made all the difference.Knowing how your colleagues operate can save you a lot of time and frustration. Bringing apositive attitudeto work and learning to change to others (vs. expecting them to change to your needs) is a surefire way to make yourself into a good team player. Know what your end goal is, and be ready to work with your peers to get there in the way that works best for everyone.Think of each adaption big or small as practice to become a great manager yourself someday. Things come up, and your ability to conquer the day and nail your presentation, no matter how difficult yourteamseemed at the beginning, will always put you on top.

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RETROSPECTIVA

For a while we (Paulo Caroli and TC Caetano) have beencataloguing many ideasand activities for retrospectives. Weve created a 7-step agenda with steps and activities to help you to structure your next retrospective.

Agenda structure:1. Setting the contextSetting the context at the beginning of any meeting is the first step you can take to ensure that the meeting is effective. Participants need to understand what the focus of the meeting is.You can start the meeting either with a pre-defined context, or you can define it real-time with the participants (So, what is the context for this retrospective?).Below are some sample contexts: This retrospective is a bi-weekly recurring Scrum retrospective for the ABC team. We are on Sprint 12 out of 30. In 14 days, our artifact should reach the main production stage. Feature XYZ exploded in production, bringing the servers down for 2 hours until sys-admin could bring the older version back up. This team will work together in a new project starting today. We have worked together in the past year. We will be working together for another year to come.2. Prime DirectiveIn Project Retrospectives, Kerth introduced the Prime Directive; a statement intended to help set the stage for the retrospective. The Prime Directive states: Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job he or she could, given what was known at the time, his or her skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand. The statement is invaluable to set the tone for the meeting.3. EnergizerThe Energizer is an optional activity that can be run to warm up the team and promote group interaction. It is a good meeting starter for any team meeting, and is especially valuable for early stages of team building.You should select an icebreaker activity to best suit your teams dynamics. When building teams, we recommend activities that focus on sharing information, such as names and hobbies. Icebreakers can also be used before any meeting, to invigorate the participants and make them feel more engaged.This kind of activity helps to create a friendly environment and makes people more comfortable to participate in the activities that will follow.Check out somesuggestions for Energizer activities.4.Check-inCheck-in activities gather information such as gauging the participants frame of mind and how they feel about the given context. It is a good next step after setting the context and reading the prime directive, especially as it narrows down the themes that will be discussed later.Another benefit of doing a check-in is that it helps people to put aside their concerns and then focus on the meeting at hand. Depending on the activity, it also helps if participants put aside their judgments at least for the duration of the meeting. These are usually short activities. Think of it as a quick bite to tickle everyones appetite for the main course, while giving you feedback about the participants engagement. Check outfurther Check-in Activities here5. Main courseThe main course is the core of a meeting that seeks to foster continuous improvement. It is composed of one or more activities, and is also the time for the team to discuss their notes.The main course activities are used to gather data, check on the teams morale, talk about the positive stuff, recognize people, and seek improvements. They drive the team to reflect about the given context, reinforce a shared vision and generate insights. The main course is the time for team members to feel heard. Each and every individual note is acknowledged and is visible to the whole team.Teams that have retrospectives as a recurring meeting will typically look for main course alternatives. By varying the activity, the team can look at different angles and perspectives, therefore generating new insights.Choose your main course wisely, with the participants and purpose in mind. This is the main activity of your meeting, and in all likelihood, the information gathered and discussed will set the tone for continuous improvement.6. FilteringAfter the main course, you will have a lot of data in front of you. It is important to have well-defined criteria to decide what will be discussed. Given the meetings limited time, it is possible that topics will be left out of the discussion.Some activities might help you to define your filtering criteria. For example, the team may group notes based on similarity and then discuss the identified clusters. Another possibility is to vote, and then focus on the most-voted topics.We've listed some more Filtering Activities here.7. Next stepsThe meeting is almost over. The team had a great discussion and generated many insights. Perhaps the activities have resulted in a few actionable items. This list of next steps is the last step in our meeting agenda. There are no formulae or specific activities for it. We recommend that the whole group talk openly about whats next for the team. What will they do with the findings from the meeting?A few examples are to include new items to the teams backlog of work, email the meeting notes to the team, schedule (or remind everyone about) the next meeting.Check out further resources for your Agile project management, tracking and planning needs

Effective RetrospectivesPromoting Continuous Improvement of Agile Teamsby Kendrick BursonOne of our readers asked a very intelligent question:How to get Optimal Value of a Retrospective ?Is there a set of best practices that we can adopt when conducting team retrospectives?I am used to facilitating a retrospectives, focusing on what went well, what went less well, what improved and what can we improve.Is there better facilitating method in getting teams to open out more ?I wish morescrum mastersand servant leaders would ask these very same questions. All too often I see teams going thru the motions of team retrospectives while completely missing the point. The retrospective is not a free meeting where the team simply bitch and gripe, or pat themselves on the back. Although these are elements of every retrospective they are definitely not the focus or purpose.If you want a complete understanding of Team Retrospectives with plenty of examples of different patterns for facilitating this meeting read the book by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen titledAgile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. This book, along with many other resources, are listed at the end of this article.How to get Optimal Value of a Retrospective Part IThe idea of the retrospective, defined in both eXtreme Programming principles and the Scrum Framework, is that it is a window for teams to inspect and adapt, to learn about what works and what does not work, and to find better ways of working together and with theirproduct owner, ever striving towards the lean principle of kaizen (continuous improvement). For this to occur the team must keep these primary goals in mind:1.Open and Honest Communication2.Group Understanding3.Executable Action ItemsThe last of which is the defined deliverable for the retrospective, the Executable Action Items. Without this you are simply clearing the air, either griping or congratulating without point or purpose. This artifact is the ultimate output of the retrospective meeting, a ratified plan on what elements of a teams working environment or practices to change in order to improve performance over past iterations.The Executable Action Items are a very short check list or todo list of suggested ideas, also known as experiments, for improving the performance of the team. This list is derived from a subset of all the issues discovered in the retrospective meeting. The list of open issues are scoped down to a short list of high priority items, less than 3, that the team wants to address in the next iteration.I call these Executable Action Items because each item should require some action by the team, should be executable, measurable and demonstrable. Sometimes this is as simple as modifying the existing team agreements. Sometimes this requires a change in practices. Sometimes this requires new patterns of collaboration with external sources such as theProduct Owner, or external teams like IT, or Release Management.Every retrospective should produce one or more clear Executable Action Items that are sourced from the team, agreed upon by the team, and most of all committed to execution by the team. This artifact should be recorded for historical reference on a wiki or other shared resource, as well as on a Big Visible Chart in the team room or work area.This BVC should be referenced every day during team standups to verify the team is consistently working towards improving their processes and working habits.So, to answer the first part of our readers question, the answer is to make sure you generate a short list of Executable Action Items as your retrospective artifact, post it as a BVC in the team area for all to see and record it on a team wiki for historical reference.Successful Retrospective Facilitation Part IIThe second part of the question posed by our reader is more difficult to explain briefly as it involves how to plan and facilitate the retrospective meeting.There are literally thousands of blog posts and publications on Agile Retrospectives. When I did a search on google I found 165,000 hits; a staggering number to sift through. Fortunately there are a few clear winners in this field. As mentioned above, the primary resource for learning about effective retrospectives is the book by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, with additional information on each of their blogs. These authors are known in project management circles as the Retrospective Queens. For every manager,scrum masteror otherwise servant leader of Agile Delivery Teams, this book is a must read. Although this is not the first book written on Retrospectives, nor is it the last, it has become a standard that many refer to.Today my favorite resource for all things on Retrospectives is the Agile Retrospective Wiki. This site is full of collections of ideas from the best in the industry. Many of the entries on this site also appear in Esther & Dianas book. This site is a growing collection of patterns, tools and ideas for giving powerful, fun and successful retrospectives.Esther & Dianas book outlines a 5 step plan for organizing and facilitiating successful retrospectives. Most of the industry is in agreement and has adopted this strategy. The 5 steps are:1. Set the Stage2. Gather Data3. Generate Insights4. Decide What to Do5. Close the RetrospectiveSome facilitators try to take a shorthand approach to their retrospectives, skipping step 1: Set the Stage, heading straight into a round robin style inquiry of the team to gather data. While this might work with very small teams that have been working well together for a very long time, it has a number of drawbacks.It is important to remember that the 5 step plan given above was honed after many years of both failed and successful retrospectives, and post mortem meetings, by professionals throughout the industry. From their collective wisdom we learn that the most successful retrospectives all follow a similar pattern. Unless you are a seasoned facilitator and have lead many successful retrospectives then it is not recommended to stray from this guideline. On the other hand if you find something that works well for your team then I encourage you to share that pattern with others, post a note to Esther or Diana, or on the Agile Retrospective Wiki.Step 1: Set the StageThe first step, Set the Stage helps to focus the team on the task at hand, group learning, open and honest communication. As a developer, having participated in many retrospectives, I remember attending more than one as a prisoner. My mind was focused on the bug or technical challenge that prevented us from delivering a story for the sprint. I did not want to sit and talk about feelings, I wanted to get something done.A good facilitator will always have a retrospective plan in mind and come to the meeting prepared. Setting the stage helps to break us out of our mental thought patterns and re-focus our energies on the purpose of having a retrospective, kaizen . Dont skip step one, it is there to help you get the most out of your retrospectives.To set the stage the facilitator wants to thank all the participants for showing up, having an open mind and willingness to work together to help improve the teams overall performance. They will need to introduce their plan for the retrospective meeting giving the agenda and a rough outline of the timeline. Next they should elicit some form of verbal response from every team member, whether it is simply stating their name, or a word game where each member defines their current state, or their perception of the sprint events in a word or two. Getting this verbal exercise out of each and every team member is a way of changing their state and informing their body that actual physical participation will be required.The facilitator should then review the teams working agreements to remind the team and to establish a safety zone for the retrospective meeting. Remember, little value will come from a hostile environment. Every member of the team should be safe and empowered to speak honestly about every aspect of working with the team, thescrum masterand theproduct ownerfor the past sprint. No judegement shall ocurr for anything said within the meeting: Everything discussed within the retrospective boundaries is with the spirit of open and honest communication for enhanced collaboration.Finally the facilitator will want to lead the participants in a trip down memory lane eliciting brief synopsis of the events over the past sprint from the teams memory. This frames the meeting scope and reminds all participants of what happened during their sprint, good, bad and ugly.Opening the meeting and setting the stage in this way helps the participants to refocus on the task at hand, remember what happened and what was important, and more importantly be present and available for participation in the group exercises.The resources listed below define many patterns and games you can use for each step, mix it up, try them all, have fun.Step 2: Gather DataThe next step in the 5 step plan is to gather data. This is a tricky step to have successful participation by all members of the team. Over time many different patterns have emerged from leaders in the industry on how to best encourage full participation, some are in the book by Derby & Larsen, and many more are found on websites such as the Agile Retrospective Wiki.Again, you should try them all; as a retrospective facilitator you need to work hard to keep the process fresh and interesting thereby generating the greatest participation and quality results. In each of these patterns the focus is looking for both positive events (things the team wants to continue) and negative events (things that the team feels they need to improve or manage in order to perform better.)Previously we mentioned the Round Robin pattern of inquiry for generating data. What might the drawbacks of this pattern be?Let us consider a relatively new team who has been working together for only a few sprints. In round robin you gather them around a table and ask each in turn for input, what went wrong, what went well. One at a time you put them on the spot. If you were on this team how would this make you feel?People have different behaviors, some are very vocal, others less so, some are brash and speak their minds, others are concerned about offending someone This round robin style has the least chance of success with a new team. With a well seasoned team that has built considerable trust and confidence the round robin style may work, but even then, I have not seen it be effective; not to mention that this serial method of data collection takes too much time to get all the data.Furthermore, during this round robin style, while one person is giving their answers the other members are not truly listening. They are thinking about what they are going to say when they are under the heat of the spotlight. Also, consider that while that person is speaking about how terrible the network problems were the other team members may drop that item off their list as it has already been voiced. This action causes you to lose a valuable piece of data consensus.For these reasons most of the successful patterns for data collection involve some form of silent brainstorming. Regardless of the patterns used the retrospective needs a strong facilitator to help control the dominant personalities.In silent brainstorming each team member is given a stack of 35 sticky notes and a medium felt tip pen like a sharpie (this forces the notes to be written large enough to be read from a distance while limiting the details on each note.) The team is given a timebox for generating ideas, sometimes a goal is placed before them like generate 10 sticky notes each. Each team member writes down their ideas that answer the questions posted on the board during the Set the stage step. Each retrospective pattern has slight variations on the questions posed.As the team members work independently to generate ideas there will be a flow, maybe slow to start then gaining more momentum as their brains focus more deeply on the past sprint activities. If you have set the stage appropriately their minds will already be focused on the past sprint and will have been reminded of major events that occurred.Eventually the flow will slow to a trickle or even stop. Even though the facilitator is time-boxing this activity, if the flow is strong they should hold off on closing the time box, and if the flow trickles to a halt simply ask if the team wants more time or if the time-box should be closed early.Now what are the psychological forces at play here? First of all the silent brainstorming method makes all members equal, both the loudly dominant and passive members are given equal voice. The quiet members are given courage to voice their opinions and ideas, and the loud members are forced to constrain their ideas to what fits on the sticky notes. Frequently team members will post their notes on the board as they generate them, sometimes the facilitator will canvas the group and offer to post any completed notes on the board while the team continues to generate data points. Team members who begin to slow down can read the notes already posted and be prompted for new ideas. Usually they will see duplications which emboldens their spirit with the knowledge that other teammates are thinking similarly.Step 3: Generate InsightsWhen the time box is closed the facilitator will ask the group to join him at the board to help organize the sticky notes into groups to uncover the themes represented by the generated data, like Network Troubles, Story Content or Acceptance Criteria, Interruptions,Product Owneravailability, etc. Usually there will be some amount of duplication, this is consensus, a valuable data point that helps build team cohesion.When more than one person produces a note with an identical or closely related topic this demonstrates how prevalent or important that topic is. When doing the round robin style the only way to collect this data is to acknowledge the nodding heads around the table when one person is first broaching the topic. I think that when 2 or more people are affected strongly enough by the idea to synthesize and record it on a sticky note it shows a much higher degree of consensus.Once all the notes are affinity grouped the facilitator can read through each note or group of notes, leaving an opening for each author to add details thru discussion, or possibly requesting volunteers to explicate complex topics. This is a tricky situation here where the facilitator needs to be careful not to attack or put anyone on the spot. They need to help each team member feel supported, protected and safe so that they can share their ideas without retribution. The ground rule of any brainstorming session is that no judgement is applied when ideas are expressed. The facilitor should make this clear in step 1 Set the Stage.Once all the idea groups have been discussed the team will proceed to prioritizing the themed groups by vote and discover the top 2 or 3 items where improvement is desired. I like to use multi-voting for this stage. In multi-voting, otherwise known as dot voting, each participant is given 3 votes (sometimes more if the number of affinity groups is large). They may place those votes any where they choose. Each vote signifies a topic that is important to someone. After the voting is complete the facilitor tallies the votes and identifies the top 1 or 2 topics for discussion.Step 4: Decide what to do.The top topics are given themes (subject names) for easy reference. From these themes the facilitor leads a discussion with the team on how to improve these topic areas. This is once again a form of data collection and it is up to the facilitor on how best to do this, but generally once the dirty laundry has been aired and agreed upon the team begins to feel emboldened. Soliciting ideas on how to improve the agreed upon subjects become less hazardous. Some patterns have the team break into small groups to generate ideas on how to improve a specific topic. Some teams simply hold an open forum. Choose what works best considering the emotional state of the team, the current sprint and the nature of the topics.Eventually each topic will have 1 or more Executable Action Items attached that address the described issue. The team discusses each of these items and makes a vote on their ability and desire to commit to execution of each action item. Sometimes a person is assigned to an item with the responsibility to make sure that item is completed, occasionally an expected due date is assigned as well. Other times it is simply the attempt to adopt a new practice across the team.Step 5: Close the RetrospectiveFinally the facilitator will close the retrospective. Closing the retrospective helps the team leave the meeting with a positive feeling that something good will come from all their work. This helps to encourage them to participate more in future retrospectives. For more information refer to the book or provided resources below.The final aspect of the retrospective is to generate a BVC of the Executable Action Items and post it in the team area for reference and discussion during team standups, and throughout the day as well.Conclusion:For a successful retrospective the facilitator must be organized and come to the meeting with a plan. They must be strong enough to control the louder participants while generating an atmosphere of trust and safety so that all team members may participate equally. The results of your efforts should create the following:1. Safety zone for open and honest communication2. Group understanding thru discovery3. Team committed Executable Action ItemsThe final artifact of the meeting is the Executable Action Items, which should be recorded in a team wiki and posted on a BVC in the team work area. There are vast resources available to help you plan and keep these sessions interesting, fun and productive. And remember, always have fun.Resources:Blogs & WikisXP123 Patterns for Iteration RetrospectivesRetrospectives.comRefactoring Your Development Process with RetrospectivesIntrospection And RetrospectivesandRestrospective TechniquesVideo: Retrospectives Presentation at San Francisco Agile User GroupVideo: Agile Retrospectives Making Good Teams Great!Esther Derbys Blog on RetrospectivesDelicious tags for Agile RetrospectivesSlideShare Presentations:Effective RetrospectivesThis is the best slide presentation I have seen on retrospectives. If you have never held a retrospective this slide deck shows examples of and discusses a real retrospective producing qualitative results. A great place to start if you do not know what an effective retrospective looks or feels like:Retrospective CookBookBooks:Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams GreatEsther Derby (Author), Diana Larsen (Author), Ken Schwaber (Foreword)Download the Free Extracted Excerpt from the BookDownload Agile 2007 Paper by Diana Larsen and Esther DerbyRead Esther Derbys Blog:Cockburn, Alistair. Agile Software Development. Addison-Wesley, 2001. Reflection workshops are a top-level practice in Crystal Clear.Kerievsky, Joshua. How to Run an Iteration Retrospective. 2002.Kerth, Norm. Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews. Dorset House, 2001.McCarthy, Jim and Michele McCarthy. Software for Your Head: Core Protocols for Creating and Maintaining Shared Vision. Addison-Wesley, 2001.Kaner, Sam, et al. Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making. New Society Publishers, 1996.Thiagi. www.thiagi.com Training and games.