In the world of innovation, retrospective meetings are an essential component of a project lifecycle. They’re the crucial debrief or “look back” at the work that took place during an agile project to evaluate effectiveness and gather feedback on how to improve and mitigate risk moving forward. We’ve been a part of many retrospectives with our internal team at Voltage Control as well as with clients after Design Sprints and innovation workshops, and after each iteration of an agile project. To get the most out of attendees at retrospective meetings, and to ultimately optimize the retrospective process, we utilize the power of the Liberating Structures format. 

In this article, we’ll review Liberating Structures and the retrospective concept, then go through some examples of how to apply the Liberating Structures format to a retrospective meeting. You can also find additional options, strategies, relationships, and solutions using the best Liberating Structures in meetings here.

The Impact of Liberating Structures on Retrospectives

Liberating Structures is a framework created by Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless, intended to promote powerful ways to collaborate and engage everyone within a team and boost collaborative team interactions. Liberating Structures consists of 33 microstructures, which are a collection of exercises that allow you to unleash and involve everyone in a group. They provide simple rules that make participatory decision-making easier and are a solution to the dysfunctional format of most meetings, or what Lipmanowicz and McCandless refer to as “conventional microstructures.” Conventional meeting microstructures are either too inhibiting (i.e. status reports/updates, managed discussions, presentations), or too loose and disorganized (i.e. open discussion and brainstorming). They often limit participation and the control is isolated to one individual or a select few–often the extroverted participants in the group. As a result, these conventional microstructures can routinely stifle inclusion and/or engagement. The Liberating Structures framework is built to encourage participation by including all team members, including those in today’s increasingly virtual environment. 

“Liberating Structures introduce tiny shifts in the way we meet, plan, decide and relate to one another. They put the innovative power once reserved for experts only in the hands of everyone.” -Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

Before diving into the examples of how to use Liberating Structures in a retrospective meeting, let’s quickly review what a retrospective is. At a high level, a retrospective is an opportunity to reflect on a project and learn and improve. It may be a single long meeting after a large project is finished, depending on the environment. In agile environments, a retrospective is most commonly shorter and held often (i.e. 90 minutes at the end of a Design Sprint). Questions are asked and discussed such as:

• What did we do well?
• What did we do wrong? 
• What can we do better in the future? How can we best move forward?
• Pro tip: Share the questions ahead of time with team members so they can review and provide answers before the retrospective, resulting in time better spent during the meeting.

Retrospectives are an essential tool to help teams thrive in innovation. However, they can also get complicated and complex, leaving little room to extract team members’ ideas and input. Liberating Structures are an efficient and effective way to facilitate these meetings and help get the most out of them.

Find tips and tricks on facilitating Design Sprint retrospectives like a pro here.

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3 Ways to Use Liberating Structures in a Retrospective

Now, let’s dive into 3 Liberating Structures examples that can be utilized for a retrospective.

1. What, So What, Now What?

This is a Liberating Structures technique that helps groups reflect on a shared experience to build understanding while avoiding unproductive conflict during a retrospective. You collect information about “What Happened,” make sense of the information with “So What” and, finally, uncover what actions logically follow with “Now What.” It is a very helpful exercise to help the team identify the pain points of a project and how to solve them.

What, So What, Now What? Steps

1. Individuals write down observations that stood out (1 min.)
2. Discuss observations in a small group for (2–7 min.)
3. Share with the whole group (2–3 min.)
4. Capture the important WHATs on a whiteboard.
5. Individuals write down patterns, hypotheses, and conclusions. (1 min.)
6. In a small group, discuss patterns, hypotheses, and conclusions (2–7 min.)
7. Small groups share with the whole group. (2–5 min.)
8. Capture the important SO WHATs on a whiteboard.
9. Individuals write down next steps (1 min.)
10. In a small group discuss the next steps (2–7 min.)
11. Small groups share with the whole group. (2–10 min.)
12. Capture the important NOW WHATs on a whiteboard

2. 15% Solutions

This simple (but extremely powerful) Liberating Structure is great when a retrospective’s time is limited but you want to get a group or team focused on what they are going to do next. The activity helps individuals think about small tweaks they can make to move toward and improve upon the larger goal.  The 15% Solution is the first step or solution that an individual can do without approval or resources from others. It is something that anyone can start right now if they want to. “15% Solutions show that there is no reason to wait around, feel powerless, or fearful. They help people pick it up a level. They get individuals and the group to focus on what is within their discretion instead of what they cannot change.” –Henri Lipmanowicz and Keith McCandless

15% Solutions Steps

1. Introduce the 15% Solutions concept to the team.
2. Each person generates his or her own list of 15% Solutions. (5 min.)
3. Individuals share their ideas with a small group. (3 min./person)
4. Group members ask clarifying questions and offer advice. (5-7 min./person)

3. TRIZ

This Liberating Structure is all about creative destruction and encouraging anti-patterns to unlock value and question the status quo. It forces teams to look at what didn’t work, targeting the “What did we do wrong?” question, or the worst-case scenario that could happen when bringing an idea to fruition. Do not identify net-new behaviors. Instead, focus on the worst-case scenario associated with the way your team functions, your product, project, or service offering. 

Pro-tip: Use our Triz templates for MURAL and Miro with your team during the retrospective to capture ideas, ideate, and reflect on the findings. 

TRIZ Steps

1. Introduce the concept of TRIZ to the team.
2. Identify an unwanted result that the group will focus on. If needed, have the groups brainstorm and pick the most unwanted result. (5 min.)
3. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to make a list of all it can do to make sure that it achieves this most unwanted result. 1–2–4-All refers to working alone, then in pairs, then foursomes, and finally as a whole group. (10 min.)
4. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to make a list of all that it is currently doing that resembles items on their first list. (10 min.)
5. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to determine for each item on its second list what first steps will help it stop this unwanted activity/program/procedure. (10 min.)

Utilize Liberating Structures for Project Improvement

Next time you are planning a retrospective, consider incorporating Liberating Structures to get the most out of your team and capitalize on improving your project. These three Liberating Structure exercises can be pieced together or combined with other Liberating Structures to best fit your team and needs. To help you implement them in your next meeting, we created free interactive MURAL and Miro templates for you to use.

Additional Resources

For additional information and ways to use Liberating Structures, check out our Liberating Structures course where you will:

• Learn key Liberating Structures principles
• Practice 5 key design methods
• Chart a plan for further application of Liberating Structures.
• Connect with a Liberating Structures community

We’ll lead you through our favorite Liberating Structures for opening, exploring, and closing in your facilitation. We’ll teach you about these methods and why and how they work. You’ll learn tips and tricks for using Liberating Structures across your work to facilitate lasting change. You can also learn hands-on in real-time at one of our Liberating Structures workshops: a deep-dive of Liberating Structures, when, and how to use them to unleash creativity in your meetings through maximum participation.

The post How to Use Liberating Structures for a Retrospective appeared first on Voltage Control.

This is part of my workshop recipe series where I’ll be sharing methods for facilitating successful workshops. I’ll break down the essentials of a Design Sprint, Innovation Workshop, Leadership Retreats, Executive Summits, and more. Check out the others here.

I’m a huge fan of continuous improvement and have been facilitating retrospectives for many years. I first picked up the habit when I was running Agile development teams as a CTO. Now I continue to use the process at Voltage Control for clients, internal workshop review, and general business operations improvements.

Historically, I used a set of 3 simple questions to frame the retrospective: What did we do well? What did we do wrong? What can we do better in the future? One hack that I found helpful was to ask the team to submit their answers prior to the meeting, so we could review them together as a team. But, I’ve also expanded my repertoire of retrospective techniques and activities.

Here, I’m sharing a few methods that work nicely for retrospectives. Use all or some of them, depending on how much time you have and what you want to accomplish.

Protip: Run a retrospective or post mortem at the end of every project. Too many people only run them on the failed projects. Even successful projects likey had moments of struggle, so there is always an opportunity to learn.

Activities for Reflecting on Your Design Sprint as a Group

1. Revisit the Goal & Questions

15 min

Start by framing the retrospective around the original goal of the Sprint. Simply state the goal and have the team discuss together, especially if time has lapsed. After reviewing the goal, shift focus to your Sprint Prototype questions. If you’ve used the Voltage Control Sprint Scorecard, go back and review the graph and how everyone scored the testers against these questions.

2. What, So What, Now What?

45 mins

“What, So What, Now What?” is a technique from Liberating Structures (LS) that help groups reflect on a shared experience to build understanding while avoiding unproductive conflict. You collect facts about “What Happened,” make sense of these facts with “So What” and, finally, uncover what actions logically follow with “Now What.”

The activity in itself could be your retrospective. What I also like about this one is that it forces you to take time to observe and synthesize before jumping to solutions and conclusions.

Method Steps

1. Individuals write down observations that stood out. 1 min.
2. Discuss observations in a small group for 2–7 min.
3. Share with the whole group 2–3 min.
4. Capture the important WHATs on a whiteboard.
5. Individuals write down patterns, hypotheses, and conclusions. 1 min
6. In a small group, discuss patterns, hypotheses, and conclusions 2–7 min.
7. Small groups share with the whole group. 2–5 min.
8. Capture the important SO WHATs on a whiteboard.
9. Individuals write down next steps 1 min.
10. In a small group discuss next steps 2–7 min.
11. Small groups share with the whole group. 2–10 min.
12. Capture the important NOW WHATs on a whiteboard.

3. TRIZ

35 mins

The TRIZ method is one of my absolute favorites because it’s all about creative destruction. It forces you to look at what didn’t work in your project. Instead of creating a list of things to do, you identify things to stop doing. I think that the opportunity to be vulnerable as a team creates more room for great things to happen.

Method Steps

1. Introduce the idea of TRIZ.
2. Identify an unwanted result that the group will focus on. If needed, have the groups brainstorm and pick the most unwanted result. 5 min.
3. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to make a list of all it can do to make sure that it achieves this most unwanted result. (1–2–4-All refers to working alone, then in pairs, then foursomes, and finally as a whole group.) 10 min.
4. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to make a list of all that it is currently doing that resembles items on their first list. 10 min.
5. Each group uses 1–2–4-All to determine for each item on its second list what first steps will help it stop this unwanted activity/program/procedure. 10 min.

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4. “What I Need From You”

70 mins

The “What I Need From You” technique is one I would recommend when you had a project or sprint where the team might not be connecting or understanding each other. It won’t be necessary for every retrospective but helps people in different roles and disciplines improve how they ask each other for what they need to be successful.

Method Steps

1. Select a goal or challenge to address.
2. Organize members into 3–7 functional clusters around the room.
3. Reiterate the goal or challenge being addressed.
4. Emphasize that requests must be clear and specific if they are to receive an unambiguous yes or no response.
5. Make it clear that no answers other than yes, no, I will try, and whatever will be allowed.
6. Functional clusters use 1–2–4-All to make a list of their top needs from each of the other functions in the room. (1–2–4-All refers to working alone, then in pairs, then foursomes, and finally as a whole group.)
7. Functional groups express needs are expressed as requests that can be delivered with care and nuance in the following form: “What I need from you is _____.”
8. Clusters reduce their lists to two top needs
9. Each functional cluster selects a spokesperson
10. All spokespersons gather in a circle in the middle of the room.
11. Spokespersons state their two needs to each of the other spokespersons around the circle.
12. Spokespersons take notes of requests, but no one gives answers or responses. 15 min.
13. Working individually, each spokesperson writes down one of four responses to each request: yes, no, I will try, or whatever. 5–10 min.
14. Addressing one spokesperson in the group at a time, every spokesperson in the circle repeats the requests made by him or her, then shares his or her responses (yes, no, I will try, or whatever). No discussion! No elaboration! 10 min.
15. Debrief as a group

5. 15% Solutions

20 min

15% Solutions is a simple, but powerful activity. Use this one when you don’t have a ton of time but want to get a group focused on what they are going to do next. The activity helps individuals think about small tweaks they can make in their work to move toward the larger goal. I think it’s great for building momentum and creating focus.

Method Steps

1. Introduce the 15% Solutions concept.
2. Each person generates his or her own list of 15% Solutions. 5 min.
3. Individuals share their ideas with a small group. 3 min. per person
4. Group members ask clarifying questions and offer advice. 5 to 7 min. person

Next time you need to reflect on a critical project or Design Sprint, refer to these activities and build an agenda that works for you. Any of the methods above can be pieced together to fit your needs and time constraints. For more inspiration on your retrospective, I also recommend this article on how Etsy runs “Blameless Post-Mortems.”

If you want more tips about running Design Sprints, check out all of our articles here.

The post Facilitating Design Sprint Retrospectives Like A Pro appeared first on Voltage Control.

I’m passionate about alignment. Yup, alignment. It might not be the sexiest topic in the startup world, but it’s essential to success. (It’s the reason I fell in love with Design Sprints, as they are a fantastic way to build alignment with disparate stakeholders.) Lack of focus may be the #1 killer of startups, but I believe that lack of alignment is why many organizations fail to ever realize their mission.

So, if you’re ready to align your team, I’ve assembled ten of my favorite methods. Start applying some of these and please share back what you discover!

1. Define a Shared Vocabulary

Here’s where I suggest you start: make sure everyone in your company is speaking the same “language.” When individuals or teams use different terms or define things in contradictory ways, some (if not all) of your efforts will be thwarted. That’s why I recommend establishing a shared dictionary or lexicon.

The level of effort to create your dictionary will vary depending on the size and age of the company. Begin by meeting with each team and reviewing their standard reports, metrics, and assets. Identify terms that mean different things for different groups and look for groups that use a variety of words for the same concept. Document and socialize these differences. Work toward creating documentation of your organization’s official terms and definitions, whether through a PDF or internal website.

2. Use the “Note & Vote” Technique

The Note & Vote activity is my favorite take-away from the Google Design Sprint. It’s a great tool to drop into any workshop agenda, or even a staff meeting. What I love about this tool is that it combines focused individual work, as well as the power of collective wisdom.

Here’s how it works in a nutshell: start by having the team individually generate ideas, challenges, or solutions. Then, everyone shares their favorite ideas with the group. Once everyone has shared, each person votes for their top concepts or ideas. (Depending on the size of the team and your time constraints, adjust the amount of individual work time, the number of favorites shared, and the number of votes per person.) This method is a great way to avoid groupthink, give everyone a voice, and come up with new, “out of the box” ideas.

3. Leverage Tools for Visibility

Without visibility, teams with the best of intentions may think they’re aligned, only to realize that they have drifted apart. There are many tools for creating visibility. Kanban and metrics dashboards are my two go-to strategies for creating visibility. For Kanban, I typically recommend Trello or Jira. While Trello is simple and easy to get started, Jira has much better support for software projects. For metrics, there a gazillion options these days, but I’ve been enjoying Klipfolio, and Looker is also quite nice.

Regardless of which tool you have, create a culture of actually using the tool. For example, make sure your standups and status meetings revolve around the Kanban board. Whenever a status changes, update your Kanban immediately. Review and analyze your metrics dashboards daily, if not more frequently.

4. Schedule One-On-Ones

If you aren’t doing one-on-ones, I’ve got to break it to you: you must start. There is no excuse—not even a small team! Managers, and especially executives, have the luxury of seeing the forest for the trees. One-on-ones are one of the most important tools you have to identify problems, opportunities, and see across your team to create alignment. They allow you to understand what motivates your team, their fears and concerns, and their challenges. So, if someone reports to you, I suggest weekly one-on-ones. I know everyone is busy, but I don’t recommend doing them bi-weekly. Schedule them for every week and commit!

5. Spend Two Hours Defining Your Purpose

I’m a big fan of Liberating Structures, which is a set of 33 tools and techniques that can be used to align groups. I highly recommend checking out all of their activities, but I will outline two of my favorite LS techniques here and in the next recommendation.

Purpose-to-Practice (P2P) is designed to help your group “design the five essential elements for a resilient and enduring initiative” in just two hours. By following the ingredients and agenda for this structured working session, your group will ultimately answer five important questions: “What rules must we absolutely obey to succeed in achieving our purpose?”, “Who can contribute to achieving our purpose and must be included?”, “How must we organize (both macro- and microstructures) and distribute control to achieve our purpose?”, and “What are we going to do? What will we offer to our users/clients and how will we do it?”

This is a helpful activity at the start of a startup journey or when you need to get your team back on the same page about your mission, customers, and strategies.

6. Encouraging People to Ask for Help

Another Liberating Structures activity that I find very effective for alignment is called “What I Need From You” (WINFY). This method only takes about an hour and spurs people to ask their colleagues for the things they need to be successful. In this activity, individuals make a list of what they want from others, share it, and then receive an unambiguous response of: yes, no, I will try, or whatever. This activity creates a safe space where teams can find clarity about roles, needs, and expectations.

What I like about WINFY is that it breaks down our assumptions about each other. We find out what people on the team are wanting, but not getting, or, conversely, when someone is making incorrect assumptions about what others want from them. This framework encourages collaboration among peers and is especially effective for executives who are often downward-focused, when they need to be horizontally-focused.

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7. Ensure Your Meetings are Inclusive
If you want to have an aligned team, you can’t have meetings where only a few people speak and share. Follow some simple rules to make sure that your meetings are inclusive spaces where everyone feels empowered to contribute. First, prepare by having a clear goal and agenda; this will keep everyone on track. If you have people that tend to monopolize discussions, you might want to initiate the “Note & Vote” activity mentioned above; it’s a good way to get more people involved in conversation and decision-making.

Another thing to be aware of, especially as a leader, is the tone of your meetings. Ask yourself: How is criticism and disagreement handled? Do individuals say “Yes, and…” or just shut each other down? Are ideas attributed and recognized or ignored? Take note of the tenor of your meetings and work to correct any bad habits before they become too ingrained in the culture.

8. Repetition. Repetition.

In almost everything in life, consistency is key. I think management needs to be particularly aware of this in terms of communicating with your team. You can’t assume that stating your strategy in one standup will be enough to institute new thinking and drive lasting change.

I once heard a CEO explain the same thing five times in one day to different groups. It didn’t matter if he was addressing the execs, the entire company, an intern, or the board. He patiently and consistently explained the same thing, with the same language. The message stayed the same. This kind of redundancy is monotonous and annoying, but it is crucial if you want to keep your team aligned. As an organization grows, the challenge is insuring consistency as you scale beyond your ability to do it in person.

9. Schedule a “Roles & Coffee” Meeting

Roles & Coffee is a more surgical tool that is useful when you have two employees who are having trouble working together. Often, when two team members are struggling to get along, it is due to weak assumptions about roles, responsibilities, and capabilities.

Ask them to find time to have a coffee together. When they sit down, they should take turns describing the role and responsibilities of the other person. By simply asking each other, “What do you think I do?”, they’ll be able to clarify the misconceptions that are standing in their way. While there are times when behavioral issues are at play, I’ve found this activity can clear the air for most situations.

10. Don’t Forget Postmortems

When major projects or initiatives end, teams are often ready to move on and forget all about what they just launched. They are onto the next thing or just plain exhausted. But, it’s crucial to schedule postmortems after important projects to reflect and talk through lessons learned.

During your retrospective, let team members share what worked well so it can be celebrated and repeated next time. Also, find out what didn’t go well and try to get to the root cause. I find that the classic trick of asking WHY? five times helps you dig into what went wrong. Work to foster a culture where it is ok to mess up, fail, and ultimately grow from hiccups and mistakes.

I hope you are able achieve more alignment by applying a few of these methods. With more alignment, your team will be happier, you’ll get more done, and you will increase the odds that you are doing the right things. All of this naturally adds up to a healthier, more resilient organization.

The post 10 Practical Ways to Align Your Team appeared first on Voltage Control.