Agile at Home — Personal Retrospectives
What’s Agile?
For those of you who are unaware of the term, Agile is software development paradigm that has started to see usage growth in a number of other industries. It focusses on customer collaboration and adaptability instead of more traditional contractual based planning. Through this, it aims to deliver software more effectively. You can see the highlights here.
And Retrospectives?
Retrospectives formally arose in a number of Agile frameworks, but the practice actually spans much of human history. Informally, if you have ever in a group, or individually, reflected on an event with the aim of improvement in the future, then you have retrospected.
The structure can take myriad forms and is a hotly debated topic, with everyone having their favourite formats. Broadly speaking, a team will explore the events of the past development iteration before collectively identifying responses to those events that will improve the next iteration. This ceremony will occur on a regular cadence.
The benefits of retrospectives are well known and documented. It provides a regular feedback loop for the team, a safe space to discuss issues, and keeps everyone focussed on getting better, both as a team and as team members.
Applying it at home
Personal Retrospectives
Although many of us reflect on our progress, particularly those with a focus on self-development, few actually provide a more structured approach to this practice.
To get started, I would suggest that you set some time aside each week for personal reflection. The amount of time you spend is completely up to you, but I personally take around 30 minutes for each week. Find a quiet space where you won’t be disturbed and bring something to write with. It can be helpful to actually put this in your calendar as a recurring event to remind you.
Before we start reflecting, take some time to think about your vision. This is the overarching goal that will drive you over the next months or years. This will almost certainly change over time, but it’s helpful to have a stake in the ground that we want to work towards. Around this, think of intermediate milestones that you will cross on your path to this vision. For instance, you could capture a vision for physical fitness by noting that you want to be able to run a marathon within 1 year. A milestone could be running a half marathon within 6 months. Don’t be too granular here, try and keep to a couple of visions, each with a few milestones. Our retrospective will fill in the smaller gaps. Writing your vision and milestones down some where visible can help to keep you focussed on achieving those longer terms goals.
Think back over the time since you last reflected, pay particular attention to the things that you wanted to achieve. Did you manage to complete them? Perhaps more importantly, were they successful in the goal attached? We are a culture obsessed with productivity, but ‘successful’ activities completed in pursuit of the wrong thing is simply wasteful. If you didn’t manage to complete or achieve something, don’t be personally critical, life can easily get in the way but we should reflect on it. If we didn’t manage to complete an activity, think about why, was it less important than we originally thought? Was it so onerous we simply procrastinated? Again, just be mindful of the reasons behind something without judgement. If something was successful, reflect on what made it such a triumph. What facets were part of it’s success, did it simply go better than you hoped or did you try something new that brought unexpected value?
As you explore these things, try and note down your thoughts. You could certainly write notes or long form, but a mind-map format is a great way of capturing this type of fractal data.
When you have explored enough, it’s now time to generate some ideas. Again by using the mind-map, start to branch off some of the thoughts with potential reactions. This is highly subjective, but we generally look for actions to be as specific as possible. If you didn’t mow the garden, then your action could be to mow it on Tuesday after work. If your salary negotiation didn’t go as well as expected because you didn’t have evidence of local pay ranges, then perhaps you want to get salary samples of 3 roles that closely match your own; then a secondary action to reschedule by June 18th. Don’t worry too much about quality here, we’re trying to generate plenty of ideas that we can sift through later. When generating these ideas, pay particular attention to the most important items on your list. We’re not looking to solve everything straight away, so maybe just pick the top 3 items that you’d like to improve on.
With a suitable list of reactions for your top items, you can now pick ones to commit to. Don’t overburden yourself here, this should become a life-long practice so you’ll have plenty of time to work through things. We want to make steady and sustainable progress. Pay special attention to time sensitive or critical items. If you have a presentation to deliver next week, or you’re losing money because you can’t take a certain payment type, then they should typically take precedence.
When picking items, start by picking the activity that will give you the most benefit. By benefit, I mean those items that drive you closer to your milestones. Of course, if there are time sensitive or critical items, then these should be expedited, but try and limit the amount of off-vision work you commit to if possible. Think carefully about whether you really need to do it this week, what do you lose by not doing it?
With your final list in hand, make sure you commit to them, even if it’s just to yourself. Write down when you will complete them by, note who you want to keep informed about the progress, think about what you need to be in place and how you will judge if it has been successful. You may want to keep this private, but I would strongly recommend keeping this list as visual as possible. I keep them on my fridge because I always seem to be in there, they are a constant reminder to you of the path to your vision.
Relationships
This was actually the main reason that I wanted to write about this subject. Relationships, like ourselves, are ever changing, so it’s often worth taking some time to work on them together. It sounds almost silly, but how many of us actually take time to ensure that there time for safe feedback and improvement within one of the important relationships in our lives?
I can already hear some people pulling back from the content at this point, “You’re suggesting I have a relationship retrospective with my wife/husband?”. Yes, that’s exactly what I’m suggesting. How do you feel when someone takes time out of their day to sit down and actually listen to what’s on your mind? Time where no judgement is passed, just a collaborative moment where someone tries to better understand how they can improve your life? It might sound a little soft to some, but to me it sounds like a very valuable opportunity.
Depending on the participant, you may want to keep the structure as light as possible to start with. I recommend setting aside some time each work where you can safely discuss what’s happening for the both of you. Keep it light, and make sure that you both understand that there is no judgement to be made. If you want to be heard, then offer the same courtesy. I typically like to start by sharing something that I’m grateful for. Ensuring that we identify positive things in our life on a regular basis, or identifying what we feel grateful for has been shown to actually change our brain physiology; when we practice this, the neuroplasticity of our brain can result in us actually having a more positive outlook on life. Be genuine here, open and serious feedback is a wonderful way of letting someone know how much they’re appreciated. Being jokey or mocking here could potentially harm the process.
This light start can often ease participants into the flow, such that we may feel safer or less awkward about introducing topics for discussion. When sharing your item, keep it concise and focussed on it’s impact to you. Do not be tempted to introduce blame, assume that there is no malice and work from there. Make sure to explain how you are impacted with the status quo. Continue to discuss the topic at hand together, with both offering suggestions on actions that could be taken to better the situation. Try not to come equipped with solutions, one of the benefits of this collaborative effort is that you get another perspective.
Take it in turns discussing your top items until you have a few potential actions for each.
With actions in hand, it’s now time to commit. I leave it to the reader’s discretion how they want to tackle this. Assuming that you both agree that all actions have value and could be committed to, then you could choose a single action for your own items or allow your partner to choose one of the activities. I would suggest committing to a single item each. Changing our behaviour is a difficult and often long running process, so we want to make sure that we don’t over-commit and deliver nothing.
Once committed, keep the actions visible, could you write them on PostIts and stick them somewhere you both pass regularly? In terms of tracking your progress, it depends on how comfortable you are with someone else giving you a steer now and then. Personally, I have no issue with my partner letting me know that I’m off track with my commitment, and I would assume that if you’ve read this far then you might not either. However, make sure that you discuss and then comply with each others wishes.
The next time you sit down for a retrospective, you can start discussing previous actions once you’ve shared gratitude. When doing this, use the same approach as with personal retrospectives. Don’t pass judgement, just help each other explore the reasons. Remember, assume that your interlocutor committed in good faith and did their very best to achieve that which they committed to.
Challenges
As with any new behaviour, it needs to become learned before it becomes habit. I won’t re-cover the habit-forming ground for the personal retrospective, but I will touch on the relationship one.
This is going to be an alien activity for most, it’ going to take some effort to really drive out the benefit. I want to summarise some key points:
- Do not pass judgement
- Assume the best of intentions
- Ensure that your focus is for your partner, theirs is yours
Don’t force this, make sure that you discuss the idea with your partner beforehand. This needs to be symbiotic, it won’t work if only half is committed.
Likewise, make every effort to work on your chosen action. Imagine that for every gram of effort you put it, your partner does the same. If you are consistently not making every effort, then your partner will likely become quickly disillusioned and follow close behind.
This is not easy to do, it’s going to require a constant effort to rethink your behaviours, almost certainly an initial awkward phase where you’re both finding your way, and a very high degree of emotional intelligence to be open to exploring things about yourself.
Be prepared that some things won’t work, not every action completed is going to be a masterful win. Accept that each action taken is an experiment, try it and then reflect together. Don’t be afraid to throw something out if it’s not working.
“You should accept me for who I am.”
I’m guessing that this is going to be a fairly standard response. Bollocks. If I had no interest in personal improvement, then I certainly wouldn’t be on Medium. Relationship retrospectives are simply another way for us to improve. We get honest feedback that can help us become a better person, in what way in this different from reading non-fiction or watching a DIY video? I develop myself because I want to have the best life possible, and my relationship is one of the biggest parts of that. Sharing how she feels when I criticise one of her friends, or agreeing to cook an extra night a week is hardly making me any less me.
Summary
I strongly believe that self-reflection is one of the most powerful tools we have in our arsenal for a happy and successful life. The power to look within, and honestly evaluate what we see is what allows us to constantly drive to be a better version of ourselves.
The process is going to be tough, and maybe it’s simply not for where you both are right now, but keep it in mind.
