Introduction

Hello. I am Nakaguchi from KINTO Technologies' Mobile App Development Group. I lead the iOS team for the KINTO Easy Application app which I will refer to as “the iOS team” in this article for convenience.
We hold Retrospectives irregularly, but I find that they can be rather challenging.

• Am I succeeding in bringing out everyone's true feelings??
• What are the team's real challenges??
• Is my facilitation effective??

etc.

I recently watched a webinar by Classmethod, Inc. and was so impressed by their session on "How to Build a Self-Managed Team" that I decided to apply for another training session they introduced in it about Retrospectives.
In this article, I'll share my experience attending that session.

Pre-Alignment Session

Before the Retrospective, we had a meeting with Mr. Abe and Mr. Takayanagi from Classmethod. In order to hold Retrospectives that were best suited to our team’s situation, we discussed the current status of the iOS team with them for nearly an hour.

Overview of the Retrospective

On the day of the Retrospective, Mr. Takayanagi and Mr. Ito came to the company to facilitate the meeting.
The meeting lasted for about two hours and followed this general flow:

1. Self-introductions
2. Aligning the purpose of our Retrospectives
3. Individual exercise on “How to make the team a little bit better”
4. Same content as above but in pairs
5. Sharing the findings with the whole team
6. Thinking about specific action plans in pairs
7. Sharing the findings with the whole team
8. Closing

First Half

Out of the almost two-hours meeting, it is worth noting that about half of the time was spent on "1. Self-introductions" and "2. Aligning the purpose of our Retrospectives".

During the segment "1. Self-introductions", the facilitators asked us questions such as our names or nicknames, our roles in the team, or the extent of our interactions with other team members. They looked not only at the atmosphere of the team and the personality of each of us, but also at the relationships and compatibility between team members.

During "2. Aligning the purpose of our Retrospectives", I got everyone to agree on what can be done to make the current team a little better, which was a topic I had requested. After a major release last September, our team is currently focused on improving features and refactoring, so although we are in a less busy spot, it seems that it is no easy feat to improve teams in our situation to make them a little better.

I also explained the purpose, role, and expectations for each participant that I, as the meeting organizer, had in mind when inviting them. I was told that this helps clarify how everyone should participate and makes it easier for them to speak up. I think it was a good opportunity for me to talk about things that I usually don’t have the right timing for or that I can’t speak about directly.

By spending this time in the first half of the meeting, we were able to create an atmosphere where it was easy for everyone to speak, and I felt that overall rapport was greatly improved.
Facilitation

Second Half

After thinking about " 3. Making the team a little better" individually, we proceed on with the work. However, we didn’t use any framework related to retrospectives. Instead, we simply wrote down what could make the team a little better on sticky notes. We did individual work and then moved on to pair work. There are situations where pair work is beneficial and others where it is not. In this case, it seemed like the team benefited from it. Also, the combination of people is key, as it is important not to cause psychological strain amongst the participants.
Pair Work
After that, everyone gave presentations, and there were many opinions that I was not able to draw out in the Retrospectives I have held so far. I felt that I was able to draw them out through the rapport we built and the pair work in the first half.

Then, based on the opinions that came up, everyone was asked to think about what specific actions should be taken and 6. Thinking about specific action plans in pairs. Then, each team presented their ideas.
Presentation
As a result, we decided to implement the following actions:

• Creating a Slack channel
  • Having a place where everyone can chat freely
  • Setting up a weekly meeting dedicated to chatting
  • We could build more trust by talking more about ourselves, so we decided to create a private channel instead of a public one.
• Trying to gather together at meeting rooms as much as possible (as many people used to attend online to meetings from their desks even if they were in the office).
• Setting up guideline consultation meetings regarding assigned tasks
• Clearly stating the deadline on the task tickets
  We are addressing these issues as quickly as possible, starting the next day.

Closing

At the end of the meeting, Mr. Takayanagi talked about the importance of customizing meetings, such as understanding the time allocation of meetings, the characteristics of participants and to draw their opinions. In particular, at this Retrospective, he focused his facilitation on people, using a lot of pair work.
Closing

Post-Retrospective Survey Results

Here are the results of the feedback survey taken after the Retrospective (out of 10 responses).

• Change in evaluation
  • Before: 6.3 -> After: 9
• NPS 80 (What is NPS?)
• AI summary of "How satisfied did you feel after you participated?" (free text)

The survey results showed that participants were happy with the session and the facilitator's explanations.
In addition, there were many positive comments about how specific decisions were made that led to the next actions.
Furthermore, the opportunity to understand the thoughts of other team members, and the ability to listen to things that are not normally heard, were also highly evaluated.
These results suggest that the meeting was meaningful for everyone.

Just being above 0 was a great, but there was a whopping NPS of 80!

Final Thoughts

Through this Retrospective, I realized that there were many members who felt that there was a lack of communication, and we were able to focus on the next course of action so it was a very fulfilling Retrospective. I was happy to see from the questionnaire results that the participating members were also satisfied. I also realized that the role of the meeting facilitator is very important. This is a very advanced skill that cannot be acquired overnight, and I think that the organization should focus on developing and acquiring such skills. To start with, I would like to study facilitation and become able to conduct better meetings.