Sunday, February 14, 2016

No retrospective? That never occured to me


I guess teams are asking (whining?): Do we have to do a retro after every sprint (iteration)?

Hello! the answer should be self-evident if you have even a modicum of understanding behind the theory of the case (quality first, and constant attention to improvement), but for those not on the memo list: Yes!

Mike Cohn recently addressed this question as well in one of his email blasts. Several excuses are put right, but the one I like is this one:

The Team Is Too Busy for Retrospectives

A team that says it is too busy to dedicate time to getting better is taking a very shortsighted view of the future.
In his Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey used the analogy of a woodcutter cutting a tree for days with a saw. Eventually the saw becomes dull. But with a short-term attitude, the woodcutter will never stop to sharpen the saw.
A Scrum team with a similarly short-term view will never take thirty minutes out of its schedule to look for improvements. Instead they’ll put too much value on the little bit of code that could have been developed during those 30 minutes.

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