Agile
Retrospectives,
by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen, is yet
another imminently useful and readable book from the Pragmatic Programmer's Bookshelf.
Previously, Norm Kerth's Project Restrospectives
was considered the definitive work in this area. Some may prefer Kerth's style
of writing whereas others may find it a bit to "flowery" and will favor the
plainer and more concise phrasing and style of Agile Retrospectives. In either case, Derby and Larsen had their "work cut out for
them" in trying to succeed Kerth's book and website - fortunately for them they
succeeded marvelously!
Agile Retrospectives was listed number three in Amazon.com's
Top Ten Tech Books for 2006 on the subject of "Computers and Internet." So
there are already many good reviews of this book of this book on the web and I won't
try to outdo them. Interested readers might want to see the review at
the On Be(come)ing Agile blog,
and also
at InfoQ.com (the latter includes
a free excerpt).
Kerth's
book goes into depth about retrospectives and the reasons for them, and also
spends a lot of time (and text) on the longer type of project retrospectives
that may take a day or more. In contrast, Agile
Retrospectives, focuses mostly on the shorter kind of retrospective that
takes less than a day, and often no more than an hour or two. In this book, it's
not just the style of retrospective that is shorter
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and more to the point, the
style of writing is also shorter and more to the point. It gives very brief but
clear explanations and then quickly moves on to stories, strategies, or "How To"-style
tips & techniques.
The focus
of the book is on short and simple activities to prepare for, conduct, and then
analyze the results of your retrospective. The early chapters of the book
introduce the need to "inspect and adapt" and how to lead and customize
retrospectives to fit your team environment. The rest of the chapters focus on
activities for various kinds or stages of retrospective. There are chapters on activities
to: Set the Stage, Gather Data, Generate Insights, Close the Retrospective, and
even an appendix on Debriefing. Subsequent chapters deal with end-of-iteration
and end-of-release/project retrospectives, and how to "Make it So." There are also
appendices for Facilitation Supplies, an Activities Quick-Reference Matrix, and
Resources for Learning Facilitation Skills.
For this
reason, I found Agile Retrospectives
better suited for those who want to quickly "get up and running" with
retrospectives for their own projects and teams. It spends less time talking
about the
retrospective prime directive and avoiding blame and devotes more time
to the practical activities of how to actually do that, and how to improve team
synergy and collaboration (and project success).
I myself
am just about to conduct a retrospective for one of my own project teams, and
rereading the book for this review very quickly gave me several additional tips
and insights that I want to remember and use for myself. Agile Retrospectives is the perfect book for those who want to
quickly understand the pragmatic reasons and applications of conducting
retrospectives, and take away key insights, strategies, and tactics that they
can immediately use in their own projects and teams!
About the Reviewer
Brad
Appleton is an enterprise SCM/ALM solution architect for a Fortune 100
technology company. Currently he helps projects and teams adopt and apply agile
development & SCM practices. Brad also author's the Agile CM Environments blog, and is
co-author of Software Configuration Management Patterns: Effective
Teamwork, Practical Integration, the "Agile SCM" column
in CMCrossroads.com's CM
Journal, and is a former section editor for The C++ Report. Since 1987,
Brad has extensive experience using, developing, and supporting SCM
environments for teams of all shapes and sizes. He holds an M.S. in Software
Engineering and a B.S. in Computer Science and Mathematics.
Comments (1)
AdamPP: ...
I found much of the material in this book very helpful in improving the effectiveness of our retrospectives.
Articles 
by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen
