Students: How to do an end-of-project team retrospective.
This one’s a two-parter. Take a good hour to do this well, and if you run out of things to do, go for a walk and write some notes.
Process #1: ‘Hot seat’ feedback.
Put one person in the “hot seat”, with everyone facing them. Take 10 mins per person to focus on that individual. Everyone gets a turn. Always do this from a position of love, wanting the person to succeed.
Do this for each person:
- Everyone takes a few minutes to silently think about the person.
- Write down: What did this person do that added to the group?
- Write down: What advice would you give this person for next time?
- One after the other, give your feedback.
- Bonus round: The person receiving feedback can give themselves feedback, with everyone else listening.
The goal here is to give incisive, useful, and true feedback. Use examples of things that happened if you can (“the time when you X”). Don’t be afraid to talk about feelings and difficult stuff.
Leave room for quiet.
Don’t fill empty space. Let it be. Some of the best retros are 25% silence.
Give and take.
When receiving feedback, you have three broad options:
- Take it:
Think about why you’re being given this feedback, take it on board now, and commit to becoming a better person because of it. - Throw it away:
Just disagree with the feedback. You don’t have to take it. - Keep it for later:
Especially with challenging feedback, it might take time to land. You can put it in your back pocket and think about it later, when you’re alone.
Totally cool to take notes through the whole thing.
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Process #2: Team retrospective.
This is way more open and freeform, but a good starting point is to take time quietly to think and write down some notes:
- What went well, what was good? Why?
- What was hard?
- What can we do differently next time?
Leave time at the end to make it make sense.
Either one person can be nominated to be the ‘scribe’ through the entire process, or you can ask people to sum up one another’s points, and the themes that ran through the whole experience.
Remember: The point of a retrospective isn’t to make a to-do list for the next chapter, it’s to put this one to bed. Aim for a sense of completion and celebration, bittersweet or otherwise.
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Further reading: retrospectivewiki.org is cool.
The “hot seat” feedback model was stolen almost verbatim from a KAOSPILOT program, if you’re an educator go do their course right now.
