Pros and Cons of conducting retrospectives

Here is a nice article about retrospectives

Retrospectives

Written by willem

Tuesday, 14 February 2006

After an event or project, all the stakeholders come together to celebrate the successes of the project, and learn from failure in a constructive manner without finger-pointing. After a retrospective participants have concrete actions for the next event or project, and can contain broader organisational change. Retrospective benefits: Closure Learning from our own mistakes Learning from someone else's mistakes Acknowledging aligned practices and accomplishments Rewriting organizational stories Learning a healthy ritual Discovering strengths of the organization Clarifying aligned roles for players Allowing to connect emotionally Challenging each others assumptions Providing an overview of what's actually happening in the organization Building trust across boundaries Clear results, that lead to realistic commitments Retrospective risks: Emotional upset Unrealized expectations Lack of follow up leading to frustration and distrust Last minute sabotage Repercussions and retaliations Loss of control at the top Increase in awareness of personal responsibilities and accountability And of the chasm between responsibilities and accountability Can be a life style changing event Discovering that you waited too long to do aretrospective Discovering some of your assumptions are invalid Risks of not doing retrospectives: Emotional upset piles up Repeating mistakes over and over again Carrying forward unhealthy relationships Not using an opportunity for sustaining and reinforcing best practices Lack of adaptivity Less access to hidden wisdom Not having your assumptions challenged Would have could have should have thinking Learning organization is not learning Getting stuck in causality loops Less access to hidden resources Retrospectives can provide lessons on architecture, planning, communication, product information flow and possible early intervention points.