Spiral Dynamics Sprint Retrospective
Did your team solve all the obvious problems? Or maybe there is a burning issue that can’t be solved? Try the Spiral Dynamic Retrospective.
Actually, this is one type of Futurespecrives.
Spiral Dynamics is a model that describes what’s most important to people at different stages of their lives. It also helps to understand how you can make a team more productive and motivated.
Yes, the spiral dynamic is just another model with levels. You may have even come across interpretations of it, such as in Frederick Laloux’s book “Discovering Future Organizations”. But the point here is that the levels in this model are not about achievements, but rather the floors of a building. Each next floor builds on all the previous floors, so no matter how cool you build a new floor, if there are flaws in at least one of the lower floors, all the next floors will crack and crumble.
These principles are the basis of the Spiral Dynamics retrospective.
To understand what levels have “cracks,” the team has a little questionnaire. There are 21 statements that need to be rated on a scale of 0 to 10. In my experience, this questionnaire takes 10–20 minutes to complete.
It is better to fill it out before the Retrospective, for example, through Google Forms.
The layout of the retrospective is fairly standard:
- Any warm-up you know of that is appropriate for the occasion
- Filling out a questionnaire by team members (if they haven’t done so beforehand)
- Discussing problematic and controversial levels
- Developing an Action plan (for example using Improvement Theme Toyota Kata).
To analyze the results we take the two most recognizable formulas from mathematical statistics: the average (arithmetic mean) and the standard deviation.
We will get a file like this:
📈 The average is counted to see the lagging areas according to the opinion of the team as a whole. If the average is low on any of the questions, it’s worth discussing.
📊 The standard deviation is counted to see where there’s a big spread between team members. This is also something to talk about, even if the average score is high, as in line 14 in the picture.
To discuss the problem areas identified, you can again choose any facilitation format you know: brainstorming, stacking, 5 why, etc. In the end, be sure to record the first steps the team will take in the next sprint to change the most problematic areas.
⚠️ Warning: If the team is not very mature or suffers from learned helplessness syndrome for some reason, its members probably won’t be able to come up with solutions for the most problematic areas. And the Scrum Master needs on the one hand to try to encourage them to be more independent, and on the other hand, probably to take on the role of an impediment remover and help them solve some of the problems they discover.
⚙️ Example: In the file on the first sheet the list of questions and fields for entering the results of the questionnaire, and on the second sheet the formulas that read the results from the first sheet.
📕 If you are interested in the topic of spiral dynamics, you can read more in Don Beck’s book “Spiral Dynamics in Action: Humanity’s Master Code”.
💬 I’d be glad if you’d write feedback after you’ve tried to host Retro in this format.
