Totoro's Retrospective

Agile Retrospective: My Neighbour Totoro

Set the Stage:

Start the retro by making sure that the energy before starting is high, for that you can do an energy check it and talk about what gives us or takes away energy.

Icebreaker:

To increase the overall energy and get everyone in the same mood we can follow up with a fun icebreaker in which putting a face to Totoro and coloring or accessorizing him can lead to valuable insights.

Agreements 

Review the team agreements agreed in the past:

• Empathic listening, listen and try to understand the point of view of others,

• Remember the importance of putting the camera, as it is proven to improve our connection and communication in general,

• We have come to look for solutions and not to blame, our mistakes are opportunities for learning and growth.

Gather Insights

Encourage the team to answer the following questions:

• Mei's Curiosity: How did we handle moments of uncertainty or the unknown? What did we learn about ourselves and our team when faced the unknown?

• Catbus's adaptability: How do we balance the need for speed with maintaining high quality? Are there moments when we have to slow down to ensure we are doing things right?

• Satsuki's responsibility: How did we handle challenging situations and responsibilities during the project? In what ways did we support each other when times were tough?

Dot Vote 

After reading all the answers, everyone has 3 possible votes. Take three dust bunnies and place them on the sticky notes of the topics of the previous questions that you think will allow the team to improve considerably

It is recommended to order/group the sticky notes beforehand in case one is repeated

Actions/Experiments 

Structure our thoughts and actions by dividing the most voted points into three steps: “What do we notice?”, “What does this mean?” and “Now what do we do?”.

Pick an umbrella and put the name of the person who will remind everybody about the action/agreement commited in the retro, having some ownership in the action helps us to make sure that the action goes ahead and is not forgotten until the next retro.

Kudos

You can use this space to thank your colleagues for their help and support, you can use a SBI (Situation, Behavior, Impact) type model to make it more impactful.

Rate the Retro 

It is time to rate the Return of Time Invested in the Retrospective. Take an emoji and put it in the picture that you consider that better reflects your Time Invested in this retro:

• Time really well spent

• I made good use of the time

• I made good use of some of the time

• A total waste of time

You can also give ideas for next Retrospective templates.