Agile @ JAOO 2007 #1

Yes, I'm attending the JAOO Conference in Denmark at the moment. Today I have seen most of the presentations in the agile track and I'm quite satisfied with the amount of information that has found its way through my ears and eyes to my brain. This information is now in a process of being mixed with my own experiences and thoughts. Hopefully on wednesday I will be able to go home and create knowledge by acting upon the informaton I now have.

I'll cut the chase and tell you. Agile Retrospectives by Diana Larsen was the last presentation on the track and its the one that still sticks in memory (The rest is written down in notes). The presentation was a small summary of Diana's experience regarding the facilitation of constructive discussions and retrospectives. One of the things she mentioned was that there is no blame in such a retrospective. The meaning is to find out what went wrong and fix it or to find ways to improve and not to finde someone to put your finger at. It is a team responsibility so there is noone to blame. Diana claims this is one of the key elements of a good retrospective, a safe environment where one can share thoughts and perspectives without handing out or be blamed for what went wrong (or right for that matter).

A second thing she mentioned was the amount of actions you should focus on for the improvement in the next iteration. This should be one or at the max two actions. These should be followed up in several ways. In the daily standing meeting was one, another being in the planning of the new iteration (ie put it on the sprint queue).

Diana Larsen inspire to a deeper look into retrospectives and from the feel of it, I think that my autumn books might be on the subject.

Have a nice night and I'll be back tomorrow with another tiny bit of the JAOO Conference