Every two weeks my team meets to discuss how we can be more awesome. In Agile/Scrum this is called a “retrospective”. The conventional format is to talk about what worked, what didn’t work, and what we can fix. While the conventional format is good, we can do better. On the whiteboard I drew water and a boat. I then gave the following instruction:

1. Our team is represented by the boat.
2. If something is working, draw something that makes the boat move faster.
3. If something isn’t working, draw something that makes the boat slow down.

After saturating the drawing with things that were working or not working, we then brainstormed and illustrated fixes.

Sprint Retrospective

The outcomes of this meeting included: Amazing brainstorming, praise from our coach, and a totally energized team. Props to Innovation Games for inspiration around creating this format.