by Luis Goncalves

Luis Goncalves shares this exercise in his book Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives  a book written by him and Ben Linders with the foreword from Esther Derby. The book can be downloaded by free in LeanPub.com or InfoQ.com, please download it and spread it within your network.

Originally, “High Performance Tree” was created by Lyssa Adkins. She explains this exercise in more details in her book “Coaching Agile Teams: A Companion for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches and Project Managers in Transition”.

What you can expect to get out of this technique

“Metaphors are a core skill that are taught in professional coaching courses”, Lyssa Adkins refers in her book. The High Performance Tree is a exactly a metaphor to help teams create a vision and a path that leads to high performance. With this exercise teams may find next steps to achieve high performance.

When you would use this technique

This exercise can be used by any team in several different ways. The maturity of a team will affect the way this exercise is performed in a team. First you should define a maturity team level and then adapt the exercise. Teams need to have strong roots to be highly productive. When the roots are solid and strong, the tree can grow and flourish.

This exercise can be used in three set-ups:

• Team startup
• A team that faces a lot of problems
• Good team that looks for next steps to become a high performing team

How to do it

A coach draws  a tree of 5 Scrum values as roots. This is a good opportunity for the coach to teach or refresh the meaning of Scrum values.

Commitment is the state or quality of being dedicated to a cause, activity, etc. A commitment should never be broken and if it is broken, it was not a commitment but an empty promise and a lie. In the Scrum world, this means that everyone involved in developing a product is committed to working towards a common objective.

Courage is the ability to confront a fear, pain, a danger, an uncertainty, or intimidation. In software development, all these feelings will be always present and it is up to team members to try to resolve anything that prevents them from being successful.

Openness is the ability to be open to new ideas, new approaches and new ways of working. This is a principal state in Agile software development, because every day teams encounter different problems that need to be approached differently; being open is mandatory for achieving success.

Focus is the process of concentrating on one aspect of the environment while ignoring other things. In software development, this means that teams should completely concentrate on one topic at a time, they should not start a new topic before finishing a previous one.

Respect is a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements. In Scrum all team members interact closely; respect is mandatory for such relationship to work.

After going through the Scrum values you can list characteristics of high performing teams. For example: Empowered, Consensus-Driven, Constructive Disagreement, Self-organised, etc.

By having this combination team can do anything, they can get great results, right business value, deliver value faster, etc. See an example on the right side.

This is a great tool to use in retrospectives. This tool helps new teams to be aware of the they need to achieve a high performance. Established teams can always come back to the picture and analyse what is missing on their journey to high performing teams.

Picture credits to: Luis Goncalves & Josua Davis

In case you are interested in Agile Retrospectives we´re at the moment preparing a 10 Days FREE AGILE RETROSPECTIVES PROGRAM. This is a complete self-study program where you will learn anything that you need to become a great Agile Retrospectives facilitator.

If you are interested in sharing your Agile Retrospective exercise with us please contact us: info@oikosofy.com.

by Jessica Long

Around the time that the Agile Manifesto materialized, another fast paced and sleeker model of partnering and collaboration was popularizing – speed dating! It only seemed fitting that the two could somehow co-exist, even if just in a playful and platonic manner. This is a fun twist for teammates that have established a good connection but might need a break from the more traditional retrospective ceremony.

What you can expect to get out of this exercise

While you may encounter a lot of baffled looks upon introducing this exercise, you can rest assured that the end result will liven the room and afford heightened relationships. The activity is unique in the sense that teammates will have an opportunity to discuss their thoughts one on one.

How to do it

Setting up the venue – 5 minutes

Before the group enters the space, place sets of chairs facing one another throughout the room. Explain the rules to your team and have them divide into two groups. Group A will remain stationary. Group B will rotate clockwise upon hearing the buzzer or bell. Each individual within both groups should be given a card that contains their name.

Speed Dating  – 5 minutes per pair

Assuming you have 10 teammates, there will be 5 rotations in total. Each encounter should be time boxed to 5 minutes. This gives each teammate the chance to voice their thoughts around the iteration and have open dialogue around opinions they may share or even differences of opinion. As the host, it is your responsibility to sound a buzzer at each 5 minute interval so that Group B can rotate to the next pairing and begin their discussion promptly.

 Speed Dating Retrospective – 5 minutes

By now, the rotation has completed and each member of Group A has had a conversation with each member of Group B. Instruct each teammate to write the name of someone in the opposite group whom they felt either the most in sync with in regards to their iteration thoughts, or someone that shared something of great value. Once you collect the cards, you will take a few moments to hopefully find a few that match.

Speed Dating Results – 15 minutes

Invite the matches up to the front of the room and congratulate them for recognizing and appreciating one another’s opinions. Have each one of them take a moment to explain something that stuck out around their conversation.

Speed Dating “Duds” / Wrap up – 15 minutes

While not everyone may have established a “match”, we know there was still a lot of great dialogue. This is an opportunity for people to talk about meaningful conversation points that they shared during the last hour. Encourage your teammates to share points that were discussed by others vs. those that they initiated themselves.

About Jessica

Jessica Long has driven multiple Agile Transformations within several large financial institutions. Her love of coaching has enabled her to be a servant leader to many teams and provide individual direction to each of the specific roles that make up a successful Agile alliance. While she values each ceremony that goes along with an iteration, she embraces the sprint retrospective most of all.

If you have questions related to this article, please feel free to contact Jessica on Twitter @ScrumAndGinger

Picture credits go to: Stuarts

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In case you are interested in Agile Retrospectives I am at the moment preparing a 10 Days FREE AGILE RETROSPECTIVES PROGRAM. This is a complete self-study program where you will learn anything that you need to become a great Agile Retrospectives facilitator.

If you are interested in sharing your Agile Retrospective exercise with us on the format of Guest Blogging please contact us: info@oikosofy.com.