Excitement has set in for Formula One fans around the globe with the 2017/18 championship kicking off over the weekend, and as an avid F1 fan myself, I am excited too.
So much so that I had developed a retrospective game around the sport a while back and I’ll like to share it with you. In case you might find it valuable.
The key part of Formula One this retro idea leverages is the Pit Stop; One of the most effective, efficient and highly collaborative teamwork display you will ever see.
When we talk about the ultimate team, a Formula One Pit Stop crew is second to none. If you think of an F1 car stopping and changing all 4 tires to put it back out on the road, takes the best part of 2 seconds. It takes some serious teamwork and synchronisation to achieve this.
For those who don’t follow or understand the F1 sport, here are few links to a mini preamble for you.
Formula 1 Preamble
Overview of the retro:
This retrospective format uses the structure of facilitating great retrospectives laid out by Esther Derby, Diana Larsen & Ken Schwaber in their Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great book.
The retro covers the Set the Stage, Gather Data, Generate Insights, Decide What to Do and Close the Retrospective structure but the focus of two stages of the structure are not in the order advised by Esther and Diana. This is not because Esther and Diana’s structure is not effective. On the the contrary. I experimented here to get targeted and early focus on discussions when identical items start to appear throughout the Gather Data stage. As Agile teams focus on moving quick feedback loop through early discovery, I thought to introduce this slight tweak to Esther and Diana’s structure. What will this give you? Quick feedback loop on any identical items is instantly acquired as the team holds discussions and identify potential actions out of these items. It is human nature to start problem solving when a problem presents itself. By talking through it right there and then without waiting for the end of the Gather Data stage time box, I feel you get an even richer, more meaningful, targeted discussion and potential action items to tackle. One might say “but the Gather Data stage is probably only time boxed to 20-30mins. Can you not wait?” Again, Esther and Diana’s structure is spot on but I’ve also found this permutation effective. Plus it gives a slight variation to the retro structure itself.
See diagram below
Timing:
90 minutes (or adjust to the size of your team)
Materials:
Post its
Sharpies/whiteboard markers
Magic charts/whiteboards/wall charts
Instructions:
Make sure you have enough room for the team to have a whiteboard/magic chart to huddle around for pit stops.
Image reference: The Sam Barnes
If your team is distributed, you will have the added complexity of choosing a good collaboration tool that works for the team. I would recommend not experimenting this retro with a new collaboration tool because this is a retro fully facilitated by the team so everyone taking part is important.
Give the team a very quick context on Formula 1 (for the benefit of team members who don’t follow it). Focus on the Pit Stop!
Team nominates a Team Principal. A Team Principal is the owner of prompting the team about potential action points to be noted for later discussion. She/he is also responsible for time boxing and helping the team focus the conversation without digressing.
Team nominates a Race Technical Director to call Pit Stop! when data generation identifies 2 or more identical groupings of data in the Gather Data stage.
Time box each of the stages below as appropriate for the team but for the Gather Data and Generate Insights, time box them together and give it a fairly large time box.
If the team is not mature enough, the Scrum Master can play the role of Team Principal and team members will observe for when they come to re-run this format again.
Running the Retro:
[Assumptions]: You’ve reviewed with the team last sprint retro actions taken into the sprint. Anything else you perform at the beginning of your retro including reiterating to the team the retro is not a blame exercise is done before kicking this off.
Set the Stage –
Start with setting the scene and introducing this retro and explaining the rules. Prepare a game to warm the team up and to disconnect them from work mode. [Team Principal activity]
Gather Data –
Team starts to discuss on how the sprint went and starts to add stickies to the whiteboard. Team with nominated Race Technical Director also keeping an eye on identical items in this data gathering phase. [Team activity]
Generate Insights –
As soon as there appears to be identical items raised by team members, Race Technical Director will call PIT STOP! When Pit Stop is called, the team will huddle round the post-it notes on the wall chart/whiteboard and discuss the identical grouped items to understand more i.e. how is this impacting the team (be it negative or positive)?. Discuss if there’s a potential action item here. If there is a potential action, it doesn’t mean you are to take it into the next sprint but you simply make a note of the actions which will then be prioritised by the team at the end of Retro (Decide What to Do stage). [Team activity]
Loop these two stages until time box is over. [Team Principal to keep an eye on time box]
Decide What to Do –
Team then huddles around the listed action items post-it notes and start prioritising the list and agree which one to take into the next sprint to work on to improve. Add the remaining actions not going into your sprint to be worked on to your team’s improvement backlog. [Team nudged by Team Principal as time box keeper]
Close the Retrospective –
End the retro with another game or something fun so the team ends on a high.
Just as I have adviced to end the retro on a high, let’s cross the finish line in this article on a high. Here’s a ‘Director’s cut video of the first race of the 2017/18 Championship in Melbourne. If you watch carefully, you’ll see a bit of a pit stop in action.
Formula1.com – Director’s Cut: Australia 2017
I was showed this video below by a coach and mentor of mine after this post went out and I really liked it so I wanted to share it for you all to enjoy. It shows the importance of optimising the System as a whole and not just a part of the system. If Pit stops were the only thing to have been optimised in F1 over the years, the sports (The whole System) will not be optimised as it is now. So remember to keep looking at the bigger picture and the system as a whole.
I hope this helps you mix up your retrospectives. I’ll like to hear your feedback in the comments below. Please share any permutations you run also.
Thank you to Jarrod Partridge for sharing a new link for you all to enjoy about Formula 1 pit stops and reaching out about broken links.
