It can be difficult to convince team members to speak up in a retrospective. Each individual needs to have his or her voice heard, and by incorporating silent work techniques you can foster participation in those who may otherwise be left out. Come to this interactive tutorial as we explore the power of silent work and group collaboration in retrospectives. You’ll walk away with real world techniques to help bring out the inner voices of your team.

1. a silent retrospective workshop Retrospectives… accidentally presented by David J Bland 2011

2. about me introduced to agile in 2002 currently on startup #3 passionate about failing fast speaker / writer / coach

3. why retrospectives?

4. arguably the single most important aspect of your agile philosophy

5. crucial for inspecting & adapting

6. why silent work?

7. we often talk past one another

8. “the single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place” -George Bernard Shaw

9. we fall into the 3 column trap stop / start / keep keep / drop / add mad / sad / glad same as / more of / less of

10. writing uncovers quiet brilliance

11. let’s begin

12. how many of you have facilitated a retrospective? ( show of hands )

13. how happy were you with your last retrospective? fist = unhappy five = very happy ( fist to five - temperature reading )

14. with regards to past retrospectives…

15. write what has worked well on the green post-its write what has not worked well on the red post-its ( silent writing - gathering data )

16. as a group, place all of the post-its on your designated wall

17. as a group, organize your post-its into similar clusters draw a circle around each cluster and label it ( affinity sorting - generating insights )

18. each of you have 3 orange dot stickers stick them next to the label(s) for which you’d like to explore deeper ( dot voting )

19. write the label with the most dots in the center of your 2nd sheet of wall paper

20. draw a circle around your label

21. as a group, draw a mind map representing ways you can use this label in your next retrospective ( silent mind mapping )

22. show & tell

23. questions

24. Return On Time Invested (ROTI) Exercise

25. each of you have 1 red dot sticker at your chair place it on the ROTI graph before you leave this evening ( closing the retrospective )

26. the end presented by David J Bland 2011

27. credits Lyssa Adkins: Coaching Agile Teams Esther Derby & Diana Larsen: Agile Retrospectives – Making Good Teams Great Jean Tabaka: Collaboration Explained Rachel Davies & Liz Sedley: Agile Coaching

28. bonus

29. silent work it isn’t just about retrospectives…

30. Collaborative Writing Tobias Mayer http://businesscraftsmanship.com/

31. Collaborative Design Jeff Patton http://www.agileproductdesign.com/

32. thank you! @davidjbland