Tackling tension by talking
I am a Scrum Master for a relatively new Scrum Team. They are maturing quickly but they've only been working together as a Scrum Team for about one year. Furthermore, the organization is still in its infancy stage of the agile transformation.
During a few of our sprint reviews, it was apparent there was some tension among the stakeholders. It struck me as odd because each person seemed to have good intentions and want the same things. My hypothesis was that this tension stemmed from the discomfort of the agile transformation. Stakeholders seemed unfamiliar with their new roles and responsibilities.
I had my work cut out for me. I spoke with some of the stakeholders to get a feel for whether or not my hypothesis was correct. I spoke with the head of the department to get her thoughts as well. We agreed that we should get everyone together in a room to talk.
One challenge was figuring out the best format. I thought a retrospective might work well. The ideas began to emerge. My team would still have their own retrospective but we would also have a separate retrospective with the stakeholders. I was pleasantly surprised with the positive responses when I sent the invitation. I was even more pleasantly surprised with the results!
I began by thanking everyone for joining and reviewed the agenda for the next hour and a half.
1. Intro: I explained what we usually do in a retrospective and that the purpose is to reflect and continuously improve.
2. Sail Away: we were going on a "trip" in a boat to discuss our goals, positive influences, negative things holding us back and any risks we may encounter. We would then think of action items.
3. Captains: someone has to take ownership of the action items.
4. Paddle of Happiness: this idea of having a retrospective was an experiment. In order to know if people liked the idea and wanted to do it again, I was going to ask them.
After the introduction, we got started on the real work. I explained the drawing to the left. You have to forgive the drawing. No, my toddler did not make it. I am not an artist and drawing has never been my strong suit! The island represents our goals or objectives, wind represents everything helping to push us toward our goals, the anchor stands for anything that weighs us down and the rocks represent risks. The boat represents everyone in the room.
1. I asked everyone to think of their goals: personal goals, department goals, team goals, organization goals, etc. and write them down on sticky notes. After everyone was done writing, I had each person come up individually and describe their goal.
2. I proceeded to have everyone think about all the things that are helping them reach their goals: things already in place in the company, existing skills or qualifications, awesome managers, support from team members, etc. and write them down. Then each person came to the wall and explained their sticky notes.
3. Keeping with the same theme, I had everyone do the same thing with the anchor and write down all the things that are weighing or slowing them down from reaching their goals. We did the same with risks and everyone shared what they wrote.
I could already see some of the tension in the room dissipating and it made me so excited! We talked about the goals again. I clustered them and it became obvious that everyone in the room had basically the same three objectives. I made sure to emphasize this...we are all in the same boat sailing in the same direction! Next, I clustered the rest of the items and we could all see that everyone basically had similar support and faced the same challenges and risks. This made it a little bit easier for the next step.
I had everyone break into small groups and discuss ideas for actions items to continue or increase the support and reduce or eliminate the challenges and risks. Everyone shared, we agreed on a few action items and people volunteered to be captains to ensure these action items were carried out. I was already thrilled but I wanted to make sure I was not misreading the crowd.
My favorite sign of a good retro is a happy face. I reminded everyone that this was an experiment and I wanted their honest feedback on how they thought this went and if they wanted to try it again. I asked everyone to make a simple happy, sad or so-so face on a sticky note. I turned my back and asked them to post it on the Paddle of Happiness. Great results! We agreed to do this again in two months. At that point, we will reevaluate to find out if two months is good or a different time span would be better.
The results of this experiment were awesome for me. That day on a very cold December afternoon, colleagues came together, found a common ground, improved communication and collaboration. It was an excellent use of time.
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