Software Retrospectives (post-mortems) can provide effective support for software improvement. As commonly implemented, however, they can disintegrate into finger pointing or unproductive griping. Teams typically forget what happened over the duration of the project and focus only on the last few weeks or months. To maximize the value obtained from software retrospectives, Construx offers a structured approach that helps the team consider the full scope of the project in a balanced way, with a focus on identifying changes that will help the next project go better.
Questions and Issues
We want to learn from our projects so we can improve the way our team builds and delivers products
We’ve never used software retrospectives, and we want to try them
Our software retrospectives seem to be mostly finger-pointing exercises, and we want to make them more productive
Our software retrospectives are working adequately, but we feel that with some fine-tuning they could be much more beneficial
Typical Solution
Provide coaching to the project team in conducting retrospectives
Work with the team to analyze the project, reviewing it from a number of different angles to understand the most important events
Capture specifics about what worked and what needs improvement next time
Outline the tasks, deliverables, time lines, and owners for implementing changes to address the highest priority lessons
Results You Can Expect
Prioritized lessons learned based on what worked, as well as what didn’t
A prioritized, actionable plan ready to improve your next project
