Quite different from the iterative practice of sprint retros (see my earlier post), an overall project review has goals that are a bit different. This is also intended for a broader audience... time to explore how everyone feels about how the project went and what was produced. An important point: sometimes this can be done with a client and sometimes without. Of course, the focus may be substantively different in each of those cases. Just like a sprint retro, the idea is not to make a case for who to blame or ‘for the record’ airings of grievances—we want to capture the things that enabled successful outcomes and confront what encumbered quality and value.
Here are some examples of what could be good to discuss...
Capture what propelled
Try to determine what is repeatable and sustainable.
Confront what dragged
Consider what was detracting from delivering well.
Basically, we want to figure out what to adopt and what to avoid; can’t say it more simply than that.
The who and how is bit different from sprint retros...
Who
Involve everyone who contributed anything at any point—even if the team had a developer or designer a few months ago that is now on a different project, they need to be invited and make time to contribute to a complete picture.
- Project Manager
- Sales
- Product Manager/Product Owner
- Technical Lead(s)
- All team members involved in delivery throughout
- Not just who was on the project at the end
Keep in mind that it may or may not be appropriate to do an internal and external project retro separately or combined.
How
It is essential to have an agnostic teammate facilitating (someone uninvolved with the project). Having the facilitator be impartial means they will be able to record things in a way that doesn’t assume a lot of the nuances and context that the project team has—because others who weren’t involved need to be able to understand the takeaways.
- Someone from outside the project should facilitate
- prompt people
- record +s and –s
- encourage participation (not pass judgment or validate/invalidate the contributions)
- Artifact (deck, notes, etc.) produced with key summary points that can be approached and consumed by anyone without project context
The key here is assembling that artifact. I'll talk a bit more about what to do with those artifacts in another post soon!
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