Transforming Agile Retrospectives: Proven Habit Change Strategies for Continuous Improvement
Imagine a team that meets every few weeks to reflect on their work, yet somehow, despite their best intentions, they find themselves stuck in the same old patterns—this paradox of continuous improvement in agile retrospectives reveals a hidden struggle with the art of habit change.
If you think back to your previous New Year resolutions chances are they began with a fierce commitment to change at all costs. Perhaps they were along the lines of: “Get fit”, “Read more books” or “Go minimalist.” Fast forward to somewhere around the end of February or early March and it’s likely that those grand designs fell by the wayside and you slipped comfortably back into your normal routines and habits. Why do we ask our teams to keep repeating this same kind of loop repeatedly?
As someone who has experimented with habit change, I can understand why it’s so difficult for teams to adopt meaningful improvements. My goal with this article is to offer a way to help teams embrace proven methods of habit change to unlock themselves and fulfil their intentions for positive change.
Understanding Agile Retrospectives
The goal of a retrospective is to reflect on the past iteration and identify areas of improvement. In a perfect world, the team would add any actions identified during the retrospective to their backlog so that it can be prioritised and given attention. The actions would get done, and the team’s hypothesis would be either proven correct or incorrect. In reality, though, it is common for teams to finish a retrospective with maybe a vague action if they’re lucky, or worse, no actionable outcomes at all. Ineffective retrospectives can stall a team’s goal of continuous improvement.
The Concept of Continuous Improvement
Continuous improvement is a key concept in agile. In practice, it involves making small, incremental improvements to products and processes. The benefit of continuous improvement is enticing and promises increasing value delivered, high-performing teams and overall efficiency and effectiveness. Quality in team performance begets quality in the product it creates and a self-reinforcing loop of improvement is activated.
Common barriers to continuous improvement include resistance to change, lack of time to see through X number of increments, and general complacency. These same barriers prevent teams from experiencing the benefits of retrospectives and this is a significant reason why anti-patterns take root.
Habit Change: The Missing Strategies for Continuous Improvement
Over the years I have honed my habit skills due in large part to the masterpiece about habit change called Atomic Habits by James Clear. I am not being melodramatic when I say that this book changed my life.
Without going into too much detail, it was through applying the habit methods I first learned about in the book that I was able to:
- Lose more than 20kg
- Run my first 5k and then multiple 10k races
- Participate in obstacle course races and win 2nd place for my age class in a Spartan Sprint
- Create and stick to a daily journaling habit
- Join the “5 am” club and experience incredibly productive mornings before the start of my work day
Of course these changes didn’t happen overnight but I can definitely attest to the efficacy of the methods in the book. I am pretty sure that applying these same methods in the context of agile teams will also yield similar results.
Method 1: Habit Stacking
This method consists of attaching new habits to already existing habits. For me personally, I was able to create a daily exercise habit by stacking it next to my morning routine of walking the dogs upon waking up in the morning. As soon as I would return home from the dog walk I would head straight to the garage gym in my house. Once there it was much easier to just start working out. Before I never had a set time to work out, the morning demands would get the best of me and before I knew it, it was evening and working out was the last thing I wanted to do.
In a team setting you could use habit stacking to introduce a new habit around something the team is already doing. For example, the team can stack a new habit next to their daily stand-up. If they are wanting to improve their backlog they could stack a timeboxed 20 minute refinement session right after their stand-up. Or they could add a new habit of reviewing one of their kanban metrics such as ageing chart or cycle time at the beginning of every stand-up.
Method 2: Implementation Intentions
This method aligns perfectly with a well-formed action coming out of a retrospective. It consists of planning specific actions, times, and locations for when and where a new habit will be performed. This is articulated through the formula: "I will [behaviour] at [time] in [location]." I used this method to create my daily journaling habit. My formula for that habit was “I will write in my journal for 20 minutes while I drink my morning coffee in my reclining chair.”
A team could create implementation intentions around limiting WIP with a formula like this: “When I finish a task, I will first check the Kanban board to see if there are any items in progress that need my attention. If there are, I will help move one of those items forward before taking on any new work.”
Method 3: Habit tracking
This third method helps tie everything together to help that new habit you’ve created stick. It consists of measuring on a daily basis whether or not you performed the new habit. When I was building my morning routine this was such a motivating element for wanting to continue. I listed each component of my routine: wake up at 5, walk the dogs, work out, read for 20 minutes, journal for 20 minutes and at the end of every day I would tick those items that I completed and left blank the ones I skipped. Once I had a spreadsheet full of green tick boxes for weeks on end I felt satisfied that the routine was solid.
A team can use tracking as well for the habits they want to adopt. For example, if they want to improve on incremental delivery, each team member could track on a daily basis if they made a commit that day.
Leveraging Habit Change Techniques for Effective Retrospectives
Now that you’ve seen a sample of techniques proven to influence habit change, you can leverage them to make your retrospectives more effective. Here is how:
- Utilize the retrospective to identify new habits to adopt. Once those habits have been named, think about ways to attach them to already existing habits. For those of you who like the “start/stop/continue” format – you can probably harvest some ideas from that “Start” column. Just be sure you identify what you will stack that new habit next to to make it easier to adopt.
- Convert vague retrospective outcomes to implementation intentions. Use the formula to state the exact behaviour you desire, when to enact that behaviour, and where.
- Track those new habits. Finally, make sure you are tracking on a daily basis how well the team is adhering to the new habits. Bring the cumulative tracker to the next retro and discuss the results – what was easy to implement? What was difficult to adhere to and why? This will provide you with your next continuous improvement opportunities.
Conclusion
By applying these core principles of habit change you and your team will be able to turn your retrospectives into opportunities to hone those habits. The implementation of how to do that will be clearer, the path to adopting the habit will be easier by attaching it to something good that is already happening, and the team can get motivated by their progress through the habit tracking.
Are you stuck trying to figure out how to implement habit change strategies with your team? Share your story with us and we'll try to help!
