The next tip for running a retrospective like a pro is to incorporate the Prime Directive Retrospective. The Prime Directive is simply a statement read by the scrum master about creating expectations for the meeting.
The statement reads, "Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what was known at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand."
Too often, retrospectives turn into finger-pointing and blaming people for what went wrong. With this softer approach, especially if you're anticipating walking into a heated meeting, you can calm everyone down and keep the conversation about working together and moving forward.
Team members are human and seldom have a good day every day. By keeping the retrospective positive, the team can take action to improve in the future by preventing or mitigating what went wrong.
As a coach, McFadyen says that if the team wants to blame anyone, they can blame him since he's not bothered by those comments and protects team members from harm.
McFadyen says he often puts the Prime Directive statement on the screen or wall, then they read it and sit with it for a few minutes. The Prime Directive is also something that you can add to your team working agreement.
Key Takeaways:
- The Prime Directive Retrospective helps to set the context and tone of the meeting
- The retrospective is about people
- Stop blaming people if something goes wrong
- Work on solving or preventing problems
- Focus on how you improve as a team
Need to watch any of the other videos in the series? Find the links below!
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Presenter(s)
John McFadyen is an Executive and Enterprise Agile Coach with proven experience working on some of the UK and Europe’s largest, most complex Agile Transformations.
As a Certified Scrum Trainer, John brings a wealth of experience as an Agile coach, Agile practitioner and software developer into each of the 4 core courses he provides.
Certified ScrumMaster
Certified Scrum Product Owner
Advanced Certified ScrumMaster
Certified Scrum Professional ScrumMaster
The war stories, the insights into successful Agile transformations and everything he has learned from coaching high-performance Agile teams combines to provide course delegates with a unique, compelling training experience that transforms as much as it empowers.
John is passionate about cultivating high-performing Agile organisations that unleash people’s passion and creativity. As an Agile coach, John has worked with C-Suite level individuals on cultivating and embedding Business Agility within the DNA or large organisations.
In addition to being an Agile coach and Certified Scrum Trainer, John is also a founding partner of Agile Centre.
As an entrepreneur, John works at growing Agile capability with clients from around the world. Agile Centre has fast established itself as a pioneer in the cultivation and development of Agile capabilities within organisations great and small.
John leverages his experience as an Agile coach, consultant and trainer to help organisations embed Agile values, mindsets and develop a high-performance culture of Business Agility.
John is also deeply invested in growing the next generation of great Scrum Masters via the Agile Coaching Academy. An 18-month journey that helps practitioners move through an apprenticeship in Agile coaching through to journeyman and practising Agile coach.
John is also an international keynote speaker, author and Business Agility mentor. Visit www.johnmcfadyen.com for more insights into John’s writing, thought leadership and mentorship.
