I am not a huge fan of the Retrospective Prime Directive\u00a0since I find it to be fairly empty and lacks authenticity. \u00a0For those of you unfamiliar with the Retrospective Prime Directive, take a look at the text below, and form your own opinions.<\/p>\n
“Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available and the situation at hand.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If you and your Team are getting great benefit from this words, then by all means, please continue to read this statement aloud at your next Retrospective. \u00a0There is certainly nothing wrong with this statement. \u00a0However, if you find that\u00a0Retrospective Prime Directive does not match your reality, then feel free to discard it.<\/p>\n
The Retrospective Prime Directive was created by Norm Kerth in the 1990’s when Retrospectives were not that common in the software industry. \u00a0It was first published in Norm Kerth’s 2001\u00a0book, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews\u00a0(which I highly recommend reading). \u00a0The idea was that the Retrospective facilitator would read this statement aloud before the start of the Retrospective activities outlined in the book as a way to create safety for the participants.<\/p>\n
Recently, my friend and colleague Tobias Mayer<\/a> re-posted his restating of the Retrospective Prime Directive on LinkedIn. \u00a0In his recent post, Tobias discusses what he calls the Secondary Indirective<\/a>.<\/p>\n
“We are emotional and vulnerable beings, subject to a continuous flow of influences from a myriad of sources. \u00a0Sometimes we perform magnificently, other times we mess up. \u00a0Mostly we are somewhere between these extremes. \u00a0In this last period of work everyone did what they did, and likely had reasons for doing so. \u00a0Accept what is. \u00a0And now, what can we learn from our past actions and thinking that will inform and guide our future ones?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
For me, Tobias’s Secondary Indirective has a more authentic voice. \u00a0This statement identifies that as human beings, we work from a set of complex, contradictory motivations. \u00a0Sometimes we act altruistically and with the greater good in mind. \u00a0Other times we act for selfish reasons to advance our own goals. \u00a0We do not always do our best. \u00a0Does this make us bad people? \u00a0No, it just makes us human.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I am not a huge fan of the Retrospective Prime Directive\u00a0since I find it to be fairly empty and lacks authenticity. \u00a0For those of you unfamiliar with the Retrospective Prime […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[208,7,22,30,206,212,44,5,8,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-advanced-practitioners","category-agile-scrum","category-coaching","category-collaboration","category-practitioners","category-scrum-ceremonies","category-scrum-master","category-scrum-methodology","category-scrum-tools","category-sprint-retrospective"],"yoast_head":"\n
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