Until now I have participated in a number of retros but usually as a participant of the team. Today I got a chance to actually facilitate a retro. No bones about the fact I was a little nervous to start with. Having around 20 people it was a tough ask also because the retro was with a team of SMEs. Strangely enough I did not prepare at all about what I should be doing. But the things I did just came to me as if it was a natural way of doing it. I guess the secret is that I have been learning a lot from people who have facilitated retros previously. Also I think than when I dont volunteer for something but either get picked up or get thrown into I perform much better. Okay so enough about me...let me say more about the retro.
Over all I think it went pretty well , partly because the audience did not know what to expect and partly because I was able to prick the right cords in their brain. They really wanted some one to facilitate the whole process with no vested interest in the outcome and I guess I was pretty good at that. Seemed to me that they always sensed some achievements as a team of SME but could never really put a finger on it. They lacked beleif in themselves, the courage to share the mistakes and the willingness to fix it.And I had gotten into this retro with exactly these 3 as my objectives. Bring out all their feelings , knowledge and capabilities out and display it to everyone in the team. Sometime we do retros with a very clear objective of Fixing somethings that went wrong...and that is exactly what I did not intend to do with this retro. I just wanted everyone to feel relieved after the retro that they could get the thoughts right and to everyone in the team . This objective then quickly turned as a goal for the team to even take a stab at fixing some of the points they had identified.
They way I started was to ask everyone to just make a wish list of how the IDEAL case would be as per them. Put each point on a card and leave it. Don't worry about constraints . possibilities, practicality of the wish list and once they did that pretty much everyone got some burden off their shoulders instantly.
This quickly then segued into categorizing the wish list based on certain themes.
And once the themes were evident on the wall these people were smart enough to then pick the most relevant and throw their suggestion on how to try and fix them.
So in that sense I feel happy. But what did I learn?
1. I learnt that even though I want the team to come up with solution, if I know it I should guide them towards it without disclosing to them that I am actually driving it. Tricky but interesting. So I actually lead them but they do not realize it.This brings and maintains the team spirit.
2. I had the card wall very badly organized. I need to ask people to put their respective cards on the wal instead of me doing it which takes some time and allows distraction of audience. Esp if I have already identified the broad categories the card will fall into.
3. Effective use of Parking lot concept.This will help me to time box the topics to be discussed and also give everyone a feeling that not each item can be covered but also that not each item is important in relevance to the other...
Overall very learning and enjoyable experience.....
