no judgment, blame, or negativity) by highlighting any retrospective’s prime directive: Invite your team and aim for full attendance every time.Allocate a 60-90 minute time slot at a regular cadence on your team calendars.Consequently, you can stick to the golden rules for organizing a retrospective: Sailboat retros are still retrospective meetings, after all. So, shifting from your usual retro format will be well worth it!
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This format aims to help your team escape the mundane meeting routine and encourages group members to think outside the box. If you are eager to apply Sailboat retrospectives, you can get one set up very quickly either physically if you’re co-located or virtually. How to Run Sailboat Retrospectives with Your Team These goals can be both short-term or long-term. The island towards which the team is moving is a representation of a predefined combination of goals that the group aims to achieve together. Rocks represent the hidden risks that endanger the boat and could prevent your team from reaching the island in the near future In a team context, examples of these instances include the presence of technical debt or a manual system that will need to be automated in the future. Life preservers are things that helped you or could help you in the future, to avoid difficult situations or save your sprint from failing. Examples of anchors in the team process include changing priorities, a slow review process, or a redistribution of resources that stalls out the team. Examples of ‘wind in our sails’ usually include instances of collaboration or efficient communication among team members.Īnchors are problems or inefficiencies during the Sprint that held you back from sailing at an optimal pace. It represents what went well during the Sprint and the practices you want to continue encouraging within the team in the future. The wind is what drives your boat forward and helps you reach the island. Typically, areas of conversation during a Sailboat retro fall under one of the following categories: The topics you discuss during a Sailboat retrospective are focused on keeping the journey smooth and analyzing the problems that make it more difficult.
![sailboat retrospective app sailboat retrospective app](https://www.notion.so/cdn-cgi/image/format=auto,width=3840,quality=100/https://images.ctfassets.net/spoqsaf9291f/6kPR5jTQ3WLTaCLgNVLqRO/fd05cb47edbd83398aa8101a99976f14/sailboat-retrospective-nino-gorgiashvili-desktop.png)
Imagine your team as the crew of a boat propelled by the wind and each Sprint is like a stage of the trip towards your goal of reaching the land you see ahead of you. The Sailboat is a fun way of doing retrospectives by looking at your work as part of a sea journey. It gives you the opportunity to inspect your process from the perspective of a crew sailing a boat headed toward an exotic island. If you have come to this conclusion yourself, why not spice things up occasionally with a different retrospective format like the Sailboat retro? Keeping your retros fun is vital for maintaining high team engagement in the long run and continuously improving your process.