I recently conducted a series of interim retrospectives for several software development teams looking back to the start of the year. The goal of the retrospectives was not to focus on process improvements but to understand what individuals liked about the way they had been working in teams as input to a reorganisation.
I felt it was particularly important to come up with a format that got people talking about the positives (stuff that we did not want to break) rather than negatives (descending into griping).
I developed an agenda that incorporated some new group exercises around the building and mining of a timeline.
The first exercise was to ask participants to split into pairs and spend half an hour interviewing each other using very positive questions - based on Appreciative Inquiry. I first experienced using this technique in a workshop on Customer Collaboration from Ellen Gottesdiener at Agile Development 2003. Followed by Diana Larsen in her activity session on Organizational Change at XP2004.
The second exercise was to ask participants to take a few white (unlined) 6x4 index cards and marker and to draw a metaphorical picture of what it felt like to be on their last project, based on Peter Checkland's Rich Pictures. These produced some powerful images that were a very effective way of expressing how the developers felt.
After the retrospective, I produced a report by collating the outputs to identify common themes that a team reorg should address - such as reinforcing communities of practice and planning knowledge transfer for 3rd party partners. I used the pictures after the retrospective to supplement my report when presenting to upper management.
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