Retrospective Facilitation: A Simple Hack to Go from Good to Great

TL; DR: Retrospective Facilitation — Going from Good to Great

The magic technique to turn a boring Retrospective into an outstanding Retrospective is the rotation of the facilitator role equally among all team members. Check out the following 10 benefits of this Retrospective facilitation practice, from boosting learning and skill development to ensuring continuity to encouraging ownership.

Why Retrospective Facilitation Should Not Be Solely the Scrum Master’s Obligation

While Scrum Masters are often the natural facilitator of Scrum events, it is most beneficial to the Scrum team if they can also participate as ordinary team members in a Retrospective most of the time.

Check out the following 10 benefits of this Retrospective facilitator practice, from boosting learning and skill development to ensuring continuity to encouraging ownership:

• Promotes Equal Participation: All Scrum team members are equally involved when sharing the role during Retrospective facilitation. This inclusion fosters collective responsibility and active engagement during Retrospectives.
• Boosts Learning and Skill Development: Taking turns as a facilitator allows everyone to develop leadership skills, improving overall team capabilities.
• Creates Empathy: When everyone experiences the role of Retrospective facilitator, there’s more understanding of its challenges, encouraging a supportive team environment.
• Drives Diversity of Thought: Different facilitators bring fresh perspectives, potentially uncovering novel solutions and improvements.
• Relieves the Scrum Master: When other Scrum team members share facilitation duties, the Scrum Master can focus more on participating and contributing.
• Ensures Continuity: If the usual facilitator is unavailable, others are ready to step in, ensuring that the Scrum team never skips this critical team event due to a lack of Retrospective facilitation skills. A welcome side effect: Scrum Masters can enjoy a holiday, too!
• Fosters Transparency: The shared facilitator role can break down barriers and silos, encouraging open communication among the Scrum team members.
• Enhances Engagement: The novelty of different facilitators can keep team interest high, avoiding Retrospective fatigue.
• Encourages Ownership: By taking turns leading, team members often feel a greater sense of ownership and commitment to the actions agreed upon in the Retrospective.
• Nurtures a Self-Managing Team: Shared Retrospective facilitation supports the idea of self-organization, an essential aspect of Scrum, contributing to a truly agile team culture.

Educating Your Teammates in Facilitation Skills

You may ask yourself now: How can Scrum Masters help their teammates acquire facilitation skills?

As you embrace the practice of rotating the Retrospective facilitator role, you can support your teammates with the following steps. Firstly, provide them with resources for self-learning. Here’s a list of three valuable sources for Retrospective facilitation practices:

• Liberating Structures – an excellent collection of interaction patterns that fosters inclusivity and distributed decision-making.
• Retromat.org – a tool offering numerous exercises to spice up your Retrospectives.
• Management 3.0 – an excellent source for agile leadership and management tools, including facilitation techniques.

Secondly, Scrum.org offers several articles on facilitation techniques as well as a free Open Assessment for their PSFS Professional Scrum Facilitation Skills certification:

• Professional Scrum Competencies: Facilitation
• Facilitation Techniques for Scrum Events
• Five Ways to Build Consensus
• Trumpeting for All Voices to Be Heard: The White Elephant in Facilitating Participation

Thirdly, offer guidance during the initial stages of their facilitation practice and encourage peer feedback after every Retrospective. Think of it as inspecting the previous Retrospective regarding facilitation techniques. Remember, the goal is continuous improvement, not perfection.

Conclusion

Rotating the Retrospective facilitator role is a wise move. It’s not just task rotation; it’s about fostering shared responsibility, diverse insights, and improving our overall team skills. It also provides a break for our Scrum Masters, promotes transparency, and staves off Retrospective fatigue. This practice encourages ownership and nurtures a truly self-managing team — a cornerstone of Scrum. As we aim for a thriving agile culture, it’s worth considering shared Retrospective facilitation. It’s more than a good idea; it’s smart Scrum practice.

What other Retrospective facilitation techniques have worked for you? Please share your experience with us in the comments.