The Retrospective Handbook by Patrick Kua

One of my colleagues at ThoughtWorks published his first book last year called the Retrospective Handbook. It’s a great tool for people thinking about facilitating or wanting to hone their skills facilitating Agile retrospectives.

You can buy it here on Amazon or on Leanpub

I thought it was great… I’ve listed out here some of the things that the book covers that I really liked.

• The right context for Retrospectives
  • The effect that team dynamics and environment have on the success of a retrospective
• Lots of practical advice
  • How to prepare and set up a retrospective. Right down to the kinds of pens and paper best to use.
  • Lots of examples of language to use in specific situations
• The importance of independent facilitators and advice on what to do if thats not possible and a team member facilitates.
• Great tips for facilitators
  • How to help achieve equal participation from everyone.
  • How to handle anti-patterns from participants
  • Importance of observing body language as a facilitator and realising that there are many more things to ‘listen to’ of you participants that just what they are speaking out loud.
• A whole section on Distributed Retrospectives
• Your job is not done once people have left the room. There are a bunch of necessary things that need to get done after the retro is over.
• 8 Common retrospective smells