Retrospective for distributed teams, here's how

At this point we had no useful answer to this question. Since DasScrumTeam is also pretty dispersed at the moment, we decided to perform a virtual retrospective for ourselves. A secondary objective of our retrospective was to define a tool and a retrospective scenario that can be recommended to a distributed Scrum team for their retrospectives. 

Tools and Preparations

After a brief, unsatisfying trying out https://noteapp.com and http://en.linoit.com we chose Google Hangout as a communication tool in combination with the app Symphonical (https://www.symphonical.com) for our retrospective.

Conditions

Peter prepared the retrospective and facilitated it as well. We had 5 participants, but 3 of them were sitting at the same computer. So we can say that we tested the tools combination named above (Google Hangout + Symphonical) for 3 participants. Talk and video quality were not optimal, a few times I was kicked out from the hangout or could not do anything for a moment in Symphonical. That could have been because I participated from home and had a lower bandwidth than the other participants. Despite the connection problems we could still successfully perform the retrospective. The total duration of the retrospective was 2 hours - without the technical problems 90 minutes would have probably been enough.

Our Scenario

A new „Wall“ was created in Symphonical for our retrospective. The wall had 5 columns:

1. That's what happened
2. That was good
3. Things we should improve
4. And action
5. New year wishes

Realization steps of the retrospective:

1. Setting the stage

   • Remind of the principles of a retrospective with the help of the "Prime Directive" by Norm Kerth.

2. Gather data

   • Everyone put "post-its" with various events, that had happened since our last retrospective, in the first column ("That's what happened since last summer").
   • The post-its were read and

3. Create a positive mood

   • One by one we had to move the events he or she considered as positive in the column „That was good“ and justify it.

4. Identify areas for improvement

   • One by one we moved the events that had not gone so well in the column "Things we should improve" and justified

5. Define and prioritize improvement steps

   • Again, in order, each chose for himself the main point from the column "Things we should improve"
   • In a discussion it was decided what improvement steps or actions would be done next for each of the chosen main improvement points and the responsibility for their implementation was asigned.
   • The action "post-its" were held in the column "And Action" by the facilitator, each of them provided with a responsible person. In Symphonical you can assign "Responsible" to the post-its on the „Wall“ from the participants of a particular hangout.
   • Discussed items were provided with the "Done"

We had yet another column that is valid until the end of December „New Year Wishes“. Peter or Andreas had expressed the wish: see all again live! And we all joined it. We wish you, distributed teams, for your teams the same!