How to run a Thinking Environment retrospective
As a PM, you will be running retros with your team on a regular basis - or at the very least, involved in them as a contributor. Retros are a super important part of any Agile team’s workflow, letting you check in on how your team is doing and identify ways to improve their processes and support them. Most retros follow a fairly straightforward process, with ‘What went well’, ‘What didn’t go well’, ‘Actions’ and ‘Start, Stop, Continue’ being two of the most common frameworks. These are excellent, simple methods for addressing technical improvements and minor gripes; however, sometimes, you might feel there are bigger topics to discuss, or you want to hear more of people’s thoughts.
Here’s where the Thinking Environment retro becomes a great option. I’ve created this format based on Nancy Kline’s book Time to Think, which offers wonderful insights into how Active Listening can help you have better conversations in the workplace. Holding these types of conversations with your team is a great way to hear their deepest thoughts on a particular topic, and democratise the conversation so that your quieter team members get to speak. It’s especially effective if you have a single, key question that you would like to address with your retro time, although it can be used for generic retros as well.
There are two key formats from the book which I use for retrospectives:
Rounds - each person in the group gets to speak in turn on a particular question or topic, for as long as they like. You might be thinking that this will make the retro go on forever - fear not! Most people will self-regulate with this format pretty well. The theory behind this is that when people are interrupted, their thinking process is halted and they won’t be capable of the same creative thought or ideation as when they are supported by Active Listening. It’s your job as the facilitator to keep track of this, to make sure people don’t interject or speak out of turn, in order to preserve the Thinking Environment. A team member can ‘pass’ if they like - remember to come back to them at the end of the round to see if they have anything they’d like to add.
Thinking Pairs - split your team up into pairs. Again, everyone will be focusing on one question. Each person in the pair takes it in turns to speak for 3 minutes, to give their thoughts, ideas and think through the problem. The listener is not allowed to reply verbally, even to agree with the speaker - they must listen actively and create a supportive environment. They are only allowed to speak if their partner falls completely silent, and even then, they are only allowed to say ‘Is there anything else?’ After 3 minutes, the listener and the speaker will swap over. As the facilitator, you should set a timer and let everyone know when they should switch over.
Here’s how I would run a Thinking Environment retro using these techniques:
Ask each person to give the previous sprint (or whichever time period you’re using) a mark out of 5. Each person writes these down on post-it notes, or in Miro.
Round 1. The focus question for this round is: ‘Why did you give this mark out of 5 for the last sprint?’ If you like, you can write down what they say on post-it notes to keep a record, but the team should not be note-taking as it is quite difficult to listen and take notes at the same time.
Thinking Pairs. The focus question for the Thinking Pairs session is ‘How can we improve our score next sprint?’
Round 2. Each person feeds back to the group using the same question: ‘How can we improve our score next sprint?’ It’s a good idea to remind the group of the question before the start of the round, because they don’t necessarily just have to report back what was discussed in their pairs; they might have an additional thought whilst listening to someone else in the round, or might discover something new while they are talking. During this time, you can capture any actions on post-it notes.
Free discussion. Your team might have more they want to say without the structure of a Round. This is a great way to follow-up with individuals, but do remember to keep the Active Listening principles in play: don’t allow people to interrupt each other. Ideally, they should respect all the rules of a round, except for being allowed to speak out of order.
Follow up. At the end of the retro, you should write up all the actions discussed and share them with your team to assign ownership.
The most important thing to decide before starting this type of retro is what key question you’d like your team to answer. For most Agile teams who work in sprints, this is quite straightforward, and you can use the ‘marks out of 5’ to gauge how people are feeling. It’s also useful to track the team’s average over several retrospectives, and ask the team how they might move from a 3 to a 4, say. However, you can use this format for other types of retrospective as well, using questions such as ‘How might we improve our team’s communication?’ or ‘How might we increase collaboration with other departments?’ It can be a very effective method for any type of team to tackle a thorny issue and improve their relational skills as a group.
Have you run a retro like this before? Let me know in the comments - and let me know if you have any other methods for running retros that you find particularly effective. And of course, do check out Nancy Kline’s book Time to Think, for the full and fascinating theory behind why creating a positive thinking environment works so well for so many teams.