Esther Derby and Diana Larsen
A new book from the Prags rolled into the office this week called "Agile Retrospectives". I glanced at the title, saw the word “Agile”, looked at the size of the book (about 1/4”) and decided it was worth a read. I’ll admit that when I started the book I thought the title was “Agile Perspectives”, but quickly realized that the book was much more focused than just a loosely-related set of essays on Agile software methodology.
This book is focused entirely on one subject: the techniques of retrospective meetings as an Agile practice. This is something I’ve done at other places, but usually not in a very structured fashion. Once I realized what the book was about I was ready to pick up a few tricks to sharpen the focus of future retrospectives.
At times I felt a natural urge to recoil from the touchy-feely corporate speak that pervades the book. I’m just not a corporate rah-rah kind of guy and the thought of having posters up to remind us all to have S.M.A.R.T. goals (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic and Timely) makes we want to run out the
room screaming. But I’ll cut the authors some slack—they are self-described “facilitators” and anyone who puts themselves in that role is going to be living and breathing that vernacular.
At times this book reinforced the chronic, pseudo-scientific navel-gazing that strikes me as a particularly American corporate obsession. But taken as a whole, the book is worth a read if you are part of a team that is consciously striving to improve all the time. Some of the exercises struck me as a little childish, but overall there were some good tips.
For example, many of the techniques focused on quick, simple ways to measure team attitudes about the state of the team. While the actual measurement may not particularly scientific, they can serve as a rough guides for the team mood and dynamics. One important thing to note here is that sometimes anonymous measurement is really important to get honest evaluations from team members.
Is it worth a read? I think if you’re looking for some concrete techniques to improve retrospectives this books is worth a look.
3 out of 5 stars.