Project Retrospectives

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Project Retrospectives

• Mary Lynn Manns
• manns_at_unca.edu
• http//www.cs.unca.edu/manns

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Project Retrospective

• the single most important step
• toward improving
• the software process!
• Kerth,2001

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Why is it so important?

• When things go well
• we need to share these things with others
• When things dont go well
• we need to talk about and solve the problems
  rather than hiding them or assigning blame

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What is a retrospective?

• A ritual
• for reviewing
• projects

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Why a retrospective? To look at the past

• People stop and learn from their experiences
• document the successful practices
• avoid same mistakes over and over
• share different views
• see the big picture
• allow your process to adapt to advances in field

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Why a retrospective? To plan the future

• People are involved in improvements
• understand the need for improvement
• design improvements
• own the improvements
• get motivated to improve

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Why a retrospective?To build community

• People will understand
• what others are doing? .. what they are
  struggling with what their talents and
  limitations are? ..

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Why a retrospective?To reach closure

• People find that it is
• Cathartic
• Informative
• Enlightening
• Fun
• etc

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What a retrospective isnt

• Not a complaint session
• everyone did the best job he or she could
• Not a place for finding fault
• An end
• Not the same every time

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What happensbefore

• Interview participants
• Distribute retrospective handout
• Request effort data
• Request artifacts

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What happensIn the beginning

• Create safety
• Write ground rules
• Define success
• Define insanity
• Do the Im too busy exercise

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What happensTo look at the past

• Artifacts Contest
• The Big Picture
• Time Line
• Emotions Seismograph
• Passive Analogy
• Offer Appreciation
• Repair Damage Through Play

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What happensTo look to the future

• Change the Papers
• Messages
• A Plan for the Future
• Posters
• One Last Topic
• Closing

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What to do with the information

• Retrospective reports
• What worked well that we dont want to forget?
• What should we do differently?
• What still puzzles us?
• Recommendations to management
• Lessons learned
• Patterns

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Patterns

• To capture lessons learned, successful practices
• 1970s C. Alexander, architecture
• 1995 Design Patterns Elements of Reusable
  Object-Oriented Software
• Patterns for design, testing, management,
  training, introducing innovation, etc
• http//hillside.net/patterns/
• http//www.cs.unca.edu/manns

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Pattern

• Problem
• Forces
• Solution
• Context
• Rationale
• Consequences
• Known Uses
• Name

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Pattern Language

• A collection of related patterns
• that work together
• to solve complex problems

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Project Retrospective

• Looking back
• in order to
• move forward