Overview
Services engineering retrospectives occur monthly. Services engineers are the primary participants but infrastructure, developer advocacy, and business analyst groups also participate.
Retrospectives are faciliated using Retrium. Because there is such a large number of participants in services engineering retrospectives, we use Retrium in a slightly non-traditional way to be able to solicit topics from participants (especially those less likely to speak up in a large group) and maximize the amount of time spent on the most valuable part of any retrospective: open discussion.
Retrospective Process
If you are already familiar with Retrium then there are just a couple of things to note. The think, group and vote phases happen asynchronously. That is, the phases are open for extended periods of time where you can drop in at your leisure to suggest topics for discussion and, later, vote on those topics. Notifications are sent in Slack and email as remindes when each phase starts or is about to end.
If you are unfamiliar with Retrium or want to know more, continue reading.
1. Verify membership in the Retrium and team room
Retrospective participants need to belong to the Services Engineering team room in Retrium. Verify your membership by logging into Retrium and going to Team Rooms. If you do not have a Retrium account or are not in the team room, contact the retrospective faciliator or an engineering manager who can send you an invitation via email.
Do this early! It isn’t difficult, and you don’t want to be scrambling to get an invitation as the retrospective meeting is starting.
2. Suggest topics for discussion
Topics for discussion are suggested in the Retrium “think” phase. The think phase begins as soon as the previous retrospective ends and stays open until a few days before the retrospective meeting is held. To suggest topics to discuss, go to the Retrium Services Engineering team room and write your topic. Entries are anonymous.
Notifications will be sent when this phase starts and is close to ending.
3. Group and organize topics
Suggested topics are grouped and organized by similarity in the “group” phase. This is done by the retrospective facilitator and is meant to make the voting phase easier and quicker. Only the facilitator is involved in this phase. You can apply more than a single vote to any topic.
4. Vote on topics
Participants will vote on the topics they feel are most important to discuss with the entire group. All suggested topics, organized and grouped by the faciliator, are visible to all participants. To vote, return to the team room and apply your votes to the topics. The number of votes you have depends on the number of retrospective participants and the number of topics suggested.
Notifications will be sent when this phase starts and is close to ending.
5. Meet to discuss
The retrospective, itself, is held in person (virtually) in Zoom. It is suggested to also log into the Retrium retrospective as well. By the time the meeting starts voting will have occurred. Topics will be sorted from most to least votes.
The first few minutes of the retrospective may be spent reviewing action items from previous retrospectives. The remaining time is spent discussing the topics with the most votes. Each topic disucssion is time-boxed to allow the group to discuss the highest-voted items.
Action items are captured by the faciliator in Retrium and are transcribed to [TBD] after the retrospective.