Fun retro ideas

[gareth.jones@business-analysis.com.au]

Hi all,

We’re about to wrap our Sprint 10 this week, and have one 8 virtual sessions where we look at what worked, what didn’t, what we learned, and set goals for the next sprint.  In sprint 9 we had our first in-person retro for the whole project, and basically did the same thing with post-it’s.

I’ve read a whole bunch of sites including one called Fun Retrospectives, but in the end they’re the same thing done different.  It’s the 10th sprint, we’re pretty confident in what works and doesn’t, and improving as we go.  We only have 1 more dev sprint before our release to Production and it’s only a few minor updates, should be done next week and waiting on the testing team to clear their backlog.

What I’m after is different ideas of things we can do in a retro that don’t focus on what worked and didn’t.  My plan is just a quick 5-10 minute roundtable discussion this time around that stuff, but I want to do more team building, morale boosting fun activities instead.  Our team has changed significantly in the last few sprints, we lost most of our dev team, our remaining 2 devs are on a temporary contract extension and still have no visibility of their future in the business.

So what else can I do to focus on people rather than process for this retro?  Any great or wild ideas?  Nothing is off the table, no limits 🙂  Let’s hear it.

[gareth.jones@business-analysis.com.au]

You know me Mike, if they are all on site I’d give them morning or afternoon tea. Focus on celebration of the teams achievements….. Maybe create some cards that have accolades or avatars and points on them and ask them to give them out to each other. Maybe, if there is budget have a prize. Total up the points and the one with the most points wins the prize…

 

 

[gareth.jones@business-analysis.com.au]

Hi Mike,

Suggestions – get everyone to;

·      calculate how far away they are from their place of birth. May generate some discussion of life stories? (or,

·      tell their life-story in 30 seconds.

·      tell their favourite ‘silly’ (i.e. childish or playground) joke – e.g. mine is “Q: Where did Napoleon keep his armies? A: Up his sleevies” run a close second by “Where do you go to weigh a whale? A: A whale-weigh station.

I’m sure you’ve considered Crayons and colouring-in pictures – maybe make a twist on it by giving everyone 1 or 2 minutes to colour-in part of a picture, then swap with the person to their right – continue for a few iterations.

A friend raved about Lego collaborative games – I have never used them but may be worth exploring.

Let us know what you decide, and how it goes.

[gareth.jones@business-analysis.com.au]

what about a paper aeroplane competition?

everyone gets time to design their planes and you throw & measure the furthest plane. depending on the size of the team you can develop like playoff-type competition. Just mark out measurements on the ground with masking tape (1 meter, 2 metres, 3 meters).

For inspiration, the US sitcom ‘The Office’ ran this game in an episode.

Philip

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