gh-lyndonkl-claude/skills/reviews-retros-reflection/resources/methodology.md

Reviews, Retros & Reflection: Advanced Methodologies

Table of Contents

1. Advanced Retrospective Formats
2. Facilitation Techniques
3. Root Cause Analysis Methods
4. Psychological Safety Building
5. Action Tracking and Metrics
6. Remote and Async Retrospectives

1. Advanced Retrospective Formats

Lean Coffee (Self-Organizing Agenda)

Setup:

• Participants write topics on cards
• Group similar topics
• Dot vote to prioritize
• Discuss top topics time-boxed (5-7 min each)
• Thumbs up/down/sideways to continue or move on

When: Diverse team needs, unclear what to discuss, want emergent agenda

Pros: Democratic, surfaces unexpected issues, adapts to group needs Cons: Can be unfocused, requires strong time-boxing

Perfection Game (Aspirational)

Process:

1. Rate period 1-10 (10 = perfect)
2. "What did you like about this period?"
3. "What would make it a 10?"
4. Convert "make it 10" suggestions into actions

When: Positive framing needed, team demoralized, focus on future not past

Pros: Forward-looking, avoids negativity spiral, actionable Cons: Can avoid real problems if not pushed for honesty

Return on Time Invested (ROTI)

Process:

• Each participant rates retro value: thumb up (worth time), sideways (neutral), down (waste of time)
• Anonymous or public depending on culture
• Discuss: What made it valuable/not? How to improve next time?

When: End of every retro to improve retro itself

Metrics to track: % thumbs up over time (target: >80%)

Starfish (Five Categories)

Categories:

• Keep Doing: Works well, maintain
• Less Of: Doing too much, scale back
• More Of: Doing some, do more
• Stop Doing: Not working, eliminate
• Start Doing: Not doing, should begin

When: More nuance than Start/Stop/Continue, want gradation

Pros: Spectrum of actions, acknowledges partial successes Cons: More complex, can overwhelm with options

Speedboat with Crew (Team Dynamics Focus)

Extended metaphor:

• Captain (leadership): What's steering us?
• Crew (team): What's propelling us?
• Wind (external help): What's helping externally?
• Anchor (drag): What's slowing us?
• Rocks (risks): What dangers ahead?
• Shore (safety): What's our safety net?
• Island (goal): Where are we going?

When: Complex team dynamics, cross-functional alignment, strategic context needed

Kaleidoscope (Multiple Perspectives)

Process:

• Divide team into small groups (3-4 people)
• Each group discusses period from different lens:
  • Customer perspective
  • Business perspective
  • Technical perspective
  • Team health perspective
• Groups share findings
• Synthesize cross-perspective insights

When: Cross-functional team, need multiple viewpoints, large retro (>10 people)

2. Facilitation Techniques

Balancing Participation

Silent participants:

• Call on directly with specific question
• Use round-robin (everyone speaks once before anyone twice)
• Silent brainstorming before verbal discussion
• Anonymous input (digital tools, sticky notes)

Dominant participants:

• "Let's hear from folks who haven't spoken yet"
• Time limits per person
• Parking lot for off-topic deep dives
• Private conversation outside retro if pattern persists

Conflict emergence:

• Acknowledge tension, don't dismiss
• Reframe as system/process issue, not personal
• Focus on data/facts, not judgments
• Table if too heated, address offline with parties

Time-Boxing Discipline

Visible timer: Project countdown timer, everyone sees time remaining

Gentle warnings: "3 minutes left on this topic"

Hard stops: Move on even mid-discussion (capture in parking lot if needed)

Flex time: Reserve 10-15 min at end for parking lot topics if time permits

Clustering and Affinity Mapping

Process:

1. Gather all items (sticky notes, digital cards)
2. Read aloud without discussion
3. Ask: "Which items are about the same thing?"
4. Physically group similar items
5. Name each cluster (theme)
6. Dot vote on clusters, not individual items

Benefit: Reduces 30 individual items to 5-6 themes, focuses discussion

Dot Voting Variants

Standard: Each person gets 3-5 votes, distribute as they wish (can multi-vote same item)

Forced distribution: Must place votes on different items (prevents piling)

Weighted: Different color dots for "must discuss" (3 pts) vs "nice to have" (1 pt)

Quadrant voting: Vote on impact AND effort separately, plot on 2x2 matrix

Parking Lot Management

Purpose: Capture important but off-topic ideas without derailing

Process:

• Visible "parking lot" section (whiteboard, digital doc)
• When topic emerges: "This is important. Let's park it and return if time."
• At end: Review parking lot, decide which to address (next retro, separate meeting, async)

Don't let parking lot become graveyard: Follow up or explicitly discard

3. Root Cause Analysis Methods

5 Whys (Iterative Questioning)

Process:

1. State problem: "We missed sprint goal by 20%"
2. Why? "Too much unplanned work came in"
3. Why? "Sales committed features without engineering input"
4. Why? "No clear process for vetting customer requests"
5. Why? "We haven't defined roles in customer escalations"
6. Why? "Product/Sales alignment meetings were cancelled repeatedly"

Root cause: Inconsistent cross-functional communication, not just "too much work"

Pitfalls: Stopping too early (symptom not root), blaming people not systems

Fishbone/Ishikawa Diagram (Categorical)

Structure: Problem at head, "bones" are categories of causes

Categories (6Ms for manufacturing, adapt for software):

• Methods: Processes, workflows
• Machines: Tools, systems, infrastructure
• Materials: Code, data, resources
• Measurements: Metrics, monitoring
• Mother Nature/Environment: External factors
• Manpower/People: Skills, capacity, communication

Process:

1. Draw fishbone, problem at right
2. Brainstorm causes in each category
3. For each cause, ask "why?" to find sub-causes
4. Identify which causes have most sub-causes or highest impact
5. Select root causes to address

When: Complex problem with multiple contributing factors, want structured brainstorming

Timeline Analysis (Chronological Reconstruction)

Process:

1. Draw timeline of period (days, weeks, sprints)
2. Plot events chronologically:
   • Decisions made
   • Incidents occurred
   • Metrics changed
   • External events (outages, launches, org changes)
3. Mark sentiment highs/lows
4. Look for patterns:
   • What preceded highs? (replicate)
   • What preceded lows? (avoid)
   • Clustering of incidents?
   • Recurring cycles?

When: Long period (quarter), complex project, team needs shared understanding of sequence

Insight example: "Every time we skip retrospective, next sprint has more bugs" (correlation)

Systemic Root Cause (Layers of Systems)

Go beyond immediate cause to systemic:

• Immediate: "Typo caused outage"
• Proximate: "No code review caught it"
• Systemic: "Code review process not enforced on urgent fixes"
• Cultural: "Urgency culture prioritizes speed over safety"

Questions to surface systemic issues:

• "What allowed this to happen?"
• "What would prevent this in the future?"
• "Is this an isolated incident or pattern?"
• "What incentives/pressures contributed?"

4. Psychological Safety Building

Pre-Retro Norms Setting

Establish explicitly (don't assume):

• Prime Directive: Everyone did best with what they had
• Focus on systems/processes, not people
• Listen to understand, not to judge
• Disagree respectfully
• What's said here stays here (Chatham House Rule)
• Assume positive intent

Post visibly: On screen share, whiteboard, meeting notes

Reference during: "Remember, we're focusing on the process, not individuals"

Blameless Language

Shift from:

• "You broke production" → "Production broke when X was deployed"
• "Why didn't you test this?" → "What prevented testing from catching this?"
• "That was a stupid decision" → "What information led to that decision?"

Focus on learning, not fault: "What can we learn?" not "Who's responsible?"

Retro Facilitator Rotation

Why: Prevents one person's biases from dominating, distributes facilitation skill

How: Rotate each retro, pair new facilitators with experienced

Training: Share facilitation guide, observe retros, debrief after facilitation

Confidentiality vs Transparency

Rule of thumb: What's said in retro stays in retro UNLESS:

• It's an action item that needs external visibility
• Team explicitly decides to share broadly
• It's a safety/legal/ethical issue requiring escalation

Document actions, not discussions: Share what we'll do, not who said what

Building Trust Over Time

Early retros (first 3-5): Focus on safe topics (tools, process), celebrate wins, build habit

Mid-term (after ~10): Team comfortable, can address harder topics (communication, decision-making)

Mature retros: Can discuss interpersonal issues, performance, strategic direction

Regression: If trust breaks (leadership change, reorganization), return to basics

5. Action Tracking and Metrics

Action Completion Tracking

Metrics:

• Completion rate: % actions completed before next retro (target: >80%)
• Cycle time: Days from action creation to completion (target: <14 days for sprint teams)
• Carry-over rate: % actions moved to next retro (target: <20%)

Dashboard (simple spreadsheet or tool):

Action	Owner	Due	Status	Completed	Notes
Create standup template	Sarah	Nov 18	✓ Done	Nov 17
Fix CI pipeline timeout	James	Nov 25	⚠ In Progress	-	Blocked on infra

Review at start of every retro: Celebrate completions, discuss blockers, decide on carry-overs

Leading Indicators (Retro Health)

Participation rate: % team attending (target: 100% or explained absence)

Engagement: % participants contributing ideas (target: >80%)

ROTI scores: % thumbs up on retro value (target: >80%)

Sentiment trend: Are Mad/Sad decreasing, Glad increasing over time?

Repeat issues: Same problem >3 retros → escalate to leadership (systemic issue beyond team control)

Lagging Indicators (Business Impact)

Team performance:

• Velocity trend (increasing/stable/decreasing)
• Bug rate trend (decreasing ideal)
• On-time delivery % (increasing ideal)

Team health:

• Turnover rate (decreasing ideal)
• Engagement scores (increasing ideal)
• Sick leave patterns (stable or decreasing ideal)

Correlation: Do teams with regular retros + high action completion have better metrics?

Action Type Distribution

Track action categories over time:

• Process: 40-50% (change how we work)
• Technical: 20-30% (tools, infrastructure, code quality)
• Communication: 15-25% (meetings, documentation, alignment)
• Team dynamics: 5-15% (collaboration, morale, conflict)

Red flags:

• 60% process actions → too much overhead, simplify

• 0% technical actions → accumulating technical debt

• 30% communication actions → organizational dysfunction

6. Remote and Async Retrospectives

Synchronous Remote Retros

Tools: Miro, Mural, Jamboard, FigJam, Retrium

Best practices:

• Cameras on: Increases engagement, reads body language
• Silent brainstorming: Everyone types simultaneously (prevents groupthink, balances introverts/extroverts)
• Timers visible: Keep time-boxing discipline
• Breakout rooms: For large teams, split for intimate discussion, reconvene for synthesis
• Emoji reactions: Quick, non-verbal feedback during shares

Challenges:

• Harder to read room energy → Check in explicitly: "Sensing some tension, am I reading that right?"
• Tech issues → Have backup plan (phone-in, async fallback)
• Timezone spread → Rotate times to share burden, or go async

Async Retrospectives

When: Extreme timezone spread (>8 hours), team prefers written reflection

Process (5-day cycle):

1. Monday: Facilitator posts retro format, instructions, deadline (Friday)
2. Mon-Thu: Team adds items asynchronously
3. Thursday: Facilitator clusters items, posts summary, asks for votes
4. Friday: Team votes on priorities, facilitator summarizes top themes
5. Friday PM: Facilitator proposes actions based on votes/themes
6. Monday (next week): Finalize actions, assign owners

Pros: Time to reflect deeply, written record, inclusive of all timezones Cons: Less energy, harder to build on ideas, slower resolution

Hybrid approach: Async data gathering, sync discussion and action planning (60 min)

Tooling Recommendations

Simple (small teams, <10 people):

• Google Docs/Slides: Shared doc, everyone edits simultaneously
• Jamboard: Simple, sticky-note style

Advanced (large teams, dedicated retros):

• Retrium: Purpose-built for retros, many formats, voting, action tracking
• Miro/Mural: Infinite canvas, rich templates, integrations
• Parabol: Open-source, async support, Jira integration

Action tracking:

• Lightweight: Spreadsheet in shared drive
• Integrated: Jira, Linear, Asana (link retro actions to work tracking)
• Dedicated: Retrium, Parabol (built-in action tracking and reminders)

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Workflow Integration

When to use advanced techniques:

Advanced formats → When standard formats feel stale, team wants variety Root cause analysis → When recurring issues appear >3 times, need depth Facilitation techniques → When participation imbalanced, conflicts emerge Psychological safety building → New teams, post-conflict, low trust Metrics tracking → Mature retro practice, want to measure improvement Remote/async → Distributed teams, timezone challenges

Progression:

1. Start simple: Start/Stop/Continue, 30-min retros, basic facilitation
2. Build habit: Consistent schedule, track action completion, >80% attendance
3. Deepen practice: Experiment with formats, root cause techniques, track metrics
4. Embed in culture: Retros feel safe, honest, valuable; team requests retros proactively