Retrospectives: Be Agile and Thrive

Agile Retrospective | Hands-On Tutorial | Azure DevOps
In this video we introduce the retrospective approach and tooling enabling teams to continuously improve and achieve a 20-25% productivity enhancement with as little as an hour per month. We also introduce a new capability of the retrospective tooling that helps teams identify factors that enable them to thrive.
▬▬▬▬▬▬ TIMESTAMPS ⌚ ▬▬▬▬▬▬
01:20 - Why retrospectives?
02:05 - Retrospectives and Productivity
03:30 - Demo: How to set-up a retrospective in Azure Dev-Ops
05:49 - The Prime Directive
14:00 - Factors that contribute to thriving teams
15:00 - Demo: How to set-up a retrospective board with Team Assessment
17:05 - Team Assessment questions and associated research
17:54 - Psychological safety research
19:00 - Reviewing your team's assessment results and creating a new board to analyze
20:49 - Improving psychological safety in development teams and associated research
▬▬▬▬▬▬ WANT TO LEARN MORE? 🚀 ▬▬▬▬▬▬
🔗Retrospectives documentation: marketplace.visualstudio.com/...
🔗Retrospectives How-To Documentation: github.com/microsoft/vsts-ext...
🔗AZ-400 Learning Path: aka.ms/AzDO/AZ400Learning
🔗Intro to DevOps Practices Learning Path: aka.ms/AzDO/IntroToDevOps
🔗Intro to Azure DevOps Learning Path: aka.ms/AzDO/IntroToADO
🔗Blog post: Enabling Teams to Thrive: aka.ms/ThrivingTeamsBlog
👋Connect with April on Twitter - / theapriledwards
👋Connect with April on LinkedIn - / azureapril
👋Connect with Damon on LinkedIn - / damonstoddard
👋Connect with the Azure DevOps team on Twitter - / azuredevops
🙏Please like and subscribe ✔️ aka.ms/DevOpsLab
#AzureDevOps #DevOps #Azure #Learning #Cloud #devopstutorial @MicrosoftDeveloper @MicrosoftReactor ​

[@shawnkec]

thanks!

[@EdRandall66]

How do you set your notification popups to auto-blur whilst screen-sharing?
(Or was that done in video postprocess?)

[@AzureDevOps]

That was done in editing. Damon didn't have a second screen when recording, otherwise the comms to the team would have been hidden.

[@nakedAgility]

I like your demo of the tool, however, I have seen this specific tool feed dysfunctional behaviour on teams.
Almost the worst way to run a retrospective is to ask the three questions. If they are enshrined in the tool then this creates a constraint towards this as the way that retro should be run.
I love Azure DevOps, but I always cringe when I see teams using this tool for more than one sprint!

[@AzureDevOps]

Again, I would disagree with this. I often found rotating the questions was really beneficial, but this is up to the team/scrum lead to decide this. The tool is something we can leverage, but it's down to the humans to execute, we're often the problem.

[@fishzebra]

Nice idea but I prefer a low tech approach were each person speaks and explains their positive and negative experience and we discuss ideas for actionable improvements. I fear these boards take away the essential human touch.

[@AzureDevOps]

I would completely disagree with you. The retro board is just a tool to facilitate conversation. You can change the columns and customize what your retro looks like. The best feature is anonymity as most often teams are not always 'safe places' where people feel they can be open and honest. I see every retro I have run bring humans and teams closer together.
Especially when working with folks from other cultures. Many cultures don't allow or encourage open and honest communication.