At the start of every year, the question “do you have any new year resolutions?” is asked frequently. During my professional life as a scrum master, I notice my preparation for retrospectives could be improved. After some consideration, I came up with the retrospective challenge 2020. As a result, I came up with the following experiment:

“If I write a blog post on the form of every retrospective I host, I will prepare them better”

Jelle Smeets
An example of how me doing the retrospective challenge 2020 could look like

I notice that in all the retrospectives I host, My own team, other teams or larger project groups do not get equal preparations. I host, or co-host the following kind of retrospectives:

  • Development teams (for my own team, or others)
  • Large project (company-wide)
  • Departments

My reasoning is, that if I write a blog post about the retrospective form, I need to prepare them better, because I want to write a good post, with a solid base.

My inspiration usually comes from https://www.funretrospectives.com/, my post on Retrospective ideas, brainstorming with other scrum masters, Twitter, or creating a new form based on what the retrospective needs. This blog might be a good place to bundle all the forms I used and came up with, document the process, and hopefully re-use them in the proper situation later.

What can you expect from me in 2020?

For every retro I (co) host, I will write a blog post. This will result in +/- 20 blog posts in 2020. All the blog posts coming from the retrospective challenge 2020 can be found in the retrospective category.

In the meanwhile, the challenge has ended. Interested in the conclusion? Check Retrospective challenge 2020; the conclusion.

If you want to get updates on this challenge, and never miss a new retrospective, check out the newsletter signup page.

Are there any retrospective forms you would like to see a blog post about, or do you have any work-related New Year resolutions of your own? Let me know in the comments!