How To Use Agile Retrospectives To Help Teams Focus On Continuous Growth | Ville Reijonen

Summary

Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast: Agile Storytelling from the Trenches

Episode: How To Use Agile Retrospectives To Help Teams Focus On Continuous Growth
Host: Vasco Duarte
Guest: Ville Reijonen
Release Date: January 23, 2025

In this insightful episode of the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast, host Vasco Duarte engages in a deep conversation with Ville Reijonen, an experienced Scrum Master, about leveraging Agile retrospectives to foster continuous team growth. The discussion delves into effective retrospective formats, the role of games and simulations in team development, and Ville's personal definition of success as a Scrum Master.

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1. Favorite Agile Retrospective Formats

Spiderweb (Radar Graph) Retrospective

Ville begins by sharing his preference for the Spiderweb retrospective, also known as the radar graph. This format allows teams to assess their proficiency across various dimensions such as testing, reviewing, and team happiness.

"Spiderweb basically is this kind of way, kind of seeing what level the team is on different topics... The center of the spider web is basically zero and the edge is, for example, 10."
— Ville Reijonen [04:30]

This visual approach helps teams identify areas of strength and opportunities for improvement, providing a clear overview of their current state.

Games and Simulations

Ville’s second favorite retrospective format involves using games to create a common environment where team behaviors can be observed and reflected upon.

"If you try to create a team, you want to create common environment to behave as a team... You can create a team in a game and then reflect how you behave in the game."
— Ville Reijonen [05:18]

Vasco Duarte adds that such games can expedite the development of behaviors that would otherwise take weeks to cultivate in a real-world setting.

"When using those strategies, you see behaviors that in real life might take weeks to develop and you see them develop in minutes."
— Vasco Duarte [07:03]

These interactive methods, including role-playing and simulations, offer a safe space for teams to experiment and learn without real-world repercussions.

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2. Defining Success as a Scrum Master

Empowering the Team

Ville defines success as a Scrum Master by the point where his presence becomes less necessary in the day-to-day operations, indicating that the team and Product Owner have internalized his guidance.

"I have succeeded when I'm not really needed anymore... The team and the product owner can handle the thing themselves."
— Ville Reijonen [08:40]

This autonomy signifies that Ville has effectively transferred his knowledge and understanding to the team, enabling them to maintain their practices independently.

Tracking Progress and Maintaining Accountability

To ensure continuous growth, Ville employs a systematic approach to track the team's progress over time. He focuses on specific behaviors and patterns, adjusting his coaching strategies based on the team's evolving needs.

"I'm tracking kind of the progress of the team over time... It's a journey."
— Ville Reijonen [10:25]

Vasco echoes the importance of this method, highlighting the need to monitor individual learning journeys alongside team development.

"We should be looking for... a pattern language... Scrum is a system... it's a dynamic."
— Vasco Duarte [13:10]

By maintaining a list of desired behaviors and regularly assessing the team's alignment with these patterns, Ville ensures that the team remains on a path of continuous improvement.

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3. Coaching and Team Growth

Building Relationships and Understanding Individual Needs

Ville emphasizes the significance of one-on-one discussions to understand each team member's personal and professional circumstances. This holistic approach helps in addressing issues that may impact team dynamics.

"You have to have one to one discussions with each individual... understand what kind of world they live in."
— Ville Reijonen [14:23]

By recognizing that work is intertwined with personal life, Ville can better support his team members, fostering a more cohesive and resilient team environment.

Facilitating Personal and Collective Growth

Ville believes in aiding each team member's growth trajectory, which in turn benefits the entire team. This dual focus ensures that individual development aligns with collective goals.

"Everybody wants to grow somehow... If you can help them on the path, they usually will like you more than."
— Ville Reijonen [15:23]

Vasco concurs, noting that such alignment creates win-win scenarios, enhancing both individual satisfaction and team performance.

"You find collaboration areas... that also help the team. And that's very important... a win win that we should be looking for."
— Vasco Duarte [15:39]

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Conclusion

This episode offers valuable strategies for Scrum Masters seeking to enhance their teams through effective retrospectives and continuous growth practices. Ville Reijonen’s insights into retrospective formats, empowering teams, and fostering individual and collective development provide actionable advice for Agile practitioners. By implementing these approaches, Scrum Masters can cultivate autonomous, resilient teams capable of sustaining their agile practices independently.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps:

• "Spiderweb basically is this kind of way, kind of seeing what level the team is on different topics."
  — Ville Reijonen [04:30]

• "When using those strategies, you see behaviors that in real life might take weeks to develop and you see them develop in minutes."
  — Vasco Duarte [07:03]

• "I have succeeded when I'm not really needed anymore... The team and the product owner can handle the thing themselves."
  — Ville Reijonen [08:40]

• "Everybody wants to grow somehow... If you can help them on the path, they usually will like you more than."
  — Ville Reijonen [15:23]

This episode is a must-listen for Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches aiming to refine their retrospective techniques and foster an environment of continuous improvement within their teams.

Transcript

[Vasco Duarte]

Hey, how are you doing? I'm Vasco Duarte, your host on the Scrum Master Toolbox podcast. And I've got some exciting news. So right now, as I record this, I'm holding in my hand the signed contract for our very first Global Agile Summit. We're all in and I couldn't wait to share this news with you. So mark your calendars. May 18th, 20th of 2025 in Tallinn, Estonia. We're gonna have a transformative experience. We're putting together an event that is all about real life agile. It's not theory or buzzwords. It's practitioners sharing what's working, what's making an impact, and how they've overcome challenges that you too will have to face, or maybe even facing. Right now, we're bringing together the best stories in Agile. From product leaders to engineering wizards to business visionaries, these will be stories that will inspire you to action. This isn't just another conference. It's a chance to connect with the people that are shaping the future of Agile. And here's the best part. Right now, we're in our super early bird phase. And that means you can grab tickets at just 25% of the final price. Look, that's not just half off, it's half off of the half off. It's an incredible deal for our dedicated community members, just like you listening to this right now. So at the summit, day one will be all about hands on workshops. And days two and three, we'll dive into leadership, product strategy, coding, testing, and everything that makes Agile thrive in organizations. Right now remember, these are all first person, real life stories. Now whether you're a leader, a developer, or part of a consulting company, this event is built to take your Agile game to the next level. So don't wait. Go to globalagilesummit.com and grab your ticket. Today, let's all make 2025 the year agile truly transforms your teams, your business and our industry. I'll see you all in Tallinn. And Remember, go to globalagilesummit.com and get your super early bird ticket right now. It only be available until the agenda is announced, so don't wait. Grab it right now. Right now that that's out of the way, onto the episode. Hello everybody. Welcome to our Thursday, the big question of the week. Of course, success question here this week with Ville Rayonen. Hey, Wille. Welcome back.

[Ville Rayonen]

Thank you.

[Vasco Duarte]

Have I said how cool it is to be able to pronounce somebody's name? Oh my God. It's great to have a fellow Finn. Although I'm not a Finn, but I do live in Finland, so I'm familiar with the language. All right, cool. So Thursday it is. We'll talk about success in the second villa. But first, what's your favorite Agile retrospective format and why?

[Ville Rayonen]

I think my favorite retrospective is Spiderweb, which you have, I think handled already previously, while back. So that's kind of one of the favorite, but even more favorite would be games. Okay, so single game, but games.

[Vasco Duarte]

Before we go into the games, tell me a little bit more, a refresher for those of us who haven't heard the episode about the spiderweb. Just very quickly, what is the spiderweb format? And then we'll go into the games.

[Ville Rayonen]

So spiderweb basically is this kind of way, kind of seeing what level the team is on different topics. So you can create the axis of the spider web or hexes or what they are called. So you could have, for example, how good you are in testing, how good you are reviewing, how happy you are working as a team. So you might take some existing set of these kind of questions, or you might take some defined set, some team moral question or something else. And then there's different ways of doing this. But basically you could do that. The center of the spider web is basically zero and the edge is, for example, 10. And then you would say that, okay, the worst team in the world is in the middle of the spider web, so they absolutely suck in testing. And then you have the best team in the world in testing. And so where you would be.

[Vasco Duarte]

All right, so that's the Spiderweb, also known as the radar graph for some of you that might be googling it. How about games? Tell us about games. Why did you mention games and why? Retrospect perspective with games.

[Ville Rayonen]

If you try to create a team, you want to create common environment to behave as a team. They might not be able to do or they are not behaving as a team in their work environment. So you could create a team in game and then you can reflect how you behave in the game and could it be something you could bring in the working environment? So there's a lot of classic games. You just google agile games or agile team games and you will find there's pizza game and palbourne game and game and many other ones. But the main topic here is you have to create or find a game which they play together against something, not against each other. So you want to create an environment where the behavior of the team is visible.

[Vasco Duarte]

So is that a little bit like role playing? As well. Because of course, like when you're just thinking about, okay, a game has a purpose, right? Like there's some kind of scoring system and there's some obstacles and you need to overcome the obstacles and so on. One thing that I have tried to do as well, and I have had quite a lot of success with it, is just simulation. Right. Like where it's like a game, but the purpose is not necessarily to get a score, it's just to simulate a certain thing. Like for example, simulate a non cooperative product owner and then reflect what happens, what are the behaviors you see? Or simulate component teams versus feature teams and then reflect on that. Is that the same thinking?

[Ville Rayonen]

That's the same. You just call them simulations, but they could be called also games.

[Vasco Duarte]

That is true. That is true. They could also be called.

[Ville Rayonen]

Yeah, I think some environments the game is not taken so slightly. The children do games, but children also learn. So games are good. But you could call them simulations or demonstrations or whatever. But the point is usually that you want to demonstrate some kind of behavior which you want a team to learn about in the game. So you had good examples for this kind of bad PO behaviors and what you could do in that situation. And then you can discuss and play with the game. And it's kind of role playing. So it's not AD&D, but it's one kind of role playing.

[Vasco Duarte]

Yeah, absolutely. And role playing and games and simulations can be really powerful. One of the things that I have seen is that when using those strategies, you see behaviors that in real life might take weeks to develop and you see them develop in minutes.

[Ville Rayonen]

Yes. And that's kind of the nice, nice idea. Because it's safe environment to try things. Nothing is destroyed.

[Vasco Duarte]

It's a safe to fail environment.

[Ville Rayonen]

That's the thing. What might be destroyed is your misconceptions.

[Vasco Duarte]

Indeed. Indeed. All right, Wille, that was the retrospective. But of course we do the retros because we want to succeed and help our teams succeed as well. So share with us. When you look at yourself as a Scrum Master, how do you define success.

[Ville Rayonen]

For yourself as a Scrum Master? I would say that I have succeeded when I'm not really needed anymore. So I don't need to be in the day to day business. That team and the product owner can handle the thing themselves. I have transferred my understanding knowledge to quite far extend to them already. So. So they can do themselves the work. It doesn't mean that I'm not necessarily needed. I might be somewhere else in the organization, usually with the management, which is issue itself. But it's something I might come occasionally with the team, I might be doing the retrospectives with them. I might come to some refinements and kind of see that they don't start diverting from the path. So because these small kind of behaviors which might not be beneficial might start occurring over time. So you might need to come and see that they are still behaving right correctly, but you are not needed anymore day to day.

[Vasco Duarte]

Yeah. So one of the things we get that answer a lot and it's still the right answer. Right. Like in the end the answer is not the problem. But of course the reality of real life experience is infinitely complex. So there's a million different ways to get there. There's a million different things we might be looking at. There's a million different questions we might be asking ourselves before we get to that point. And that's what we want to explore. Wille so what are the questions? What are the things you look for? How do you keep track and yourself accountable that you're really progressing to towards that end? Vision.

[Ville Rayonen]

So how I do it, it's basically I'm tracking kind of the progress of the team over time. So I have list of kind of topics which I would like the team to kind of know how to handle. And then I'm following over basically week by week or sprint by sprint that what is the next thing I should concentrate on, what kind of behavior, what kind of thing I should be focusing on? It might be something I train the team, I run the retro with them. I have discussions with some people in there to kind of raise the level of understanding so then I can observe how the system change. What is the next step to go forward. So it's a journey.

[Vasco Duarte]

So what I hear you say is you have kind of a list of behaviors, maybe we can call them patterns that you want to see in the team. And on a regular basis you ask yourself, where do I see the team evolving as I would expect them to? Where do I see them faltering or even ignoring aspects? And then you use a combination of group discussion and one on ones to kind of raise awareness of that particular pattern and help them overcome the reasons why they are not yet at that level. Is that how you would describe it?

[Ville Rayonen]

Exactly. So it's small nudges. Try to get them the right direction and you never know what happens. So typically you are middle of some process. The team has been progressing, somebody quits and the team dynamics changes or they bring new person in from somewhere or the the part of what? Whatever problem, project or system they are developing, they have to do some changes in there and then something in the whole picture changes and that might cause you to find new area of focus which you have to. Which was not there before that. Some, for example, if a new person comes on the team, they are not on the same level with the rest of the team. So you need to see a lot of effort to bring this person the same ballpark even with the other people, so they can function as a team.

[Vasco Duarte]

And that kind of highlights one of the key aspects for us as Scrum masters and agile coaches, which is to track the learning journey of each of the team members. Now that is not the coaching part yet, right? That's the teaching and mentoring part. But that's very important because you want to get everybody to a certain level before they can start forming their own understanding and evolving it further. Right? Like we were talking about it I think yesterday when we talked about Scrum as a pattern language and that Scrum is a system, right? Scrum is not things that you somehow just pick apart and take only what you have. You always start with the system and then you evolve the system. That's what a pattern language is. And then in this particular case, like for example, a new team member comes in. We want to make sure that they get to that level of understanding Scrum as a, a system rather than just a collection of separate things, ideas or roles like many people call it. Right? A process and roles. Scrum is not process and roles. Scrum is a whole set of patterns that interact in a dynamic way. And that dynamic is not possible to capture in the form of a process description. That's why it's called a pattern language, right? It's not a process description. And that's why the Scrum creators often refer to it as a framework. I would call it a system, but that's my preference. So how do you then make sure, like how do you track it and how do you make sure that all of the team members are getting to that level of knowledge that you know is the beginning for the team to start taking ownership and evolving on their own.

[Ville Rayonen]

So of course you have to have one to one discussions with each individual team, so kind of have some kind of relationship with them so you understand what kind of world they live in. If people have issues, for example, at home, they might demonstrate it at work and it's helpful to kind of you and maybe whole team to understand that kind of situation. So you might like it would be a good idea to share this kind of that you have some, for example, sickness or something else happening. So understand the work is not only work, it's part of the whole life. And that's kind of one part, other part is kind of what they want to be. Everybody wants to grow somehow. So can you somehow help them on the path of growth? Nobody wants. Everybody's different person now than they were five years ago. So everybody grows and changes somehow. So if you can help them on the path, they usually will like you more than.

[Vasco Duarte]

And not only that, but you find collaboration areas, right? You find things that you can help them with that also help the team. And that's very important, right? To create that alignment, that win win that we should be looking for. Ville, thank you very much for sharing all those insights with us.

[Ville Rayonen]

Thank you.

[Vasco Duarte]

We really hope you liked our show. And if you did, why not rate this podcast on Stitcher or itunes, Share this podcast and let other Scrum masters know about this valuable resource for their work. Remember that sharing is caring.

[Ville Rayonen]

It.