Team Retrospectives
- Matt Birtch
Once a month, the design team organizes a retrospective meeting to talk through the past month. This is an opportunity for the team to share learnings and identify opportunities for improvement. This might include improvements to internal processes, flagging issues with specific projects or recognizing a colleague for their great work. Below is an outline for each meeting.
Review action items from the previous month
To start each meeting we revisit any action items or next steps that were identified in the previous month. It’s a chance to provide a status update on anything or carry over in to the current retro meeting.
Add Likes, Thank Yous, Wishes, Improvements
Each retrospective follows a common format capturing Likes, Thank Yours, Wishes, and Improvements. This format makes for a quick, easy way to contribute constructive feedback to the team. We try to do these in advance of the meeting but also allow 5-10 minutes during the meeting to add any new items.
Likes
Focuses on aspects of the last month that stood out in a positive way that had a positive impact on your work.
Example:
I LIKE that that we now have a starter template we can all use to start new projects off on the right foot and create greater consistency with how we share our work
Thank Yous
This section is all about recognizing fellow colleagues on the design team for great work they accomplished or for something that may have helped you in your day-to-day work. Feel free to directly name a coworker you wish to thank.
Example:
Thank you for organizing the Toronto meetup, was a ton of fun!
Wishes
Wishes are all about constructive feedback. This may be processes that have changed and had a negative impact on productivity or it might be pain points or frustrations with a project circumstance.
NOTE: it’s best to avoid specific names and better to focus on projects rather than people.
Example:
I wish we had some way to see the full picture of the scope of onboarding. Onboarding initiatives have a lot of interconnected pieces and it’s challenging to clearly see everything when there are so many teams involved in the planning process.
Improvements
Based on the above, we also take the opportunity to name some ideas for improvements. These can often turn into Action Items to follow-up on.
Example:
We should try to get better tech for remote/hybrid meetups
Review and add stamps/comments
Once everyone has added their stickies to the board, we take 5 minutes to read through them individually and respond with stamps or comments.
Once we’ve gone through them individually, we give opportunity for each participant to call out verbally items they want to highlight in the Likes and Wishes category. From there, discussion occurs organically with the team.
Identify Action Items and Assignees
At the end of the meeting, it’s important to allow for enough time to review any next steps based on the Improvements or Wishes. We create a section for ‘Action items' that are assigned to team members as they volunteer or are delegated.
Retrospective Figjam Template
You can start a new retro board from this Figjam Template.
