The Sailboat Retrospective is a fun and creative way for teams to reflect on the sprint and identify areas for improvement. It’s called “Sailboat” because the metaphor of a sailboat helps the team visualize their journey, the obstacles they faced, and the direction they want to sail towards in the future. The Sailboat or Speedboat Method for Sprint Retrospectives is an easy way to: adopt, reflect and map the team’s way forward easily, in a fun, tactile and visual way. It helps the team to reflect on what’s going well and what could be better, analyze their sails and anchors and identify opportunities for improvement or change.
The idea is that the team is on a sailboat, heading
towards their goal while dealing with winds and icebergs along the way. Winds
help propel the boat forward but obstacles such as pirates, rocks, and stubborn
anchors represent the risks that the team might encounter that could slow them
down or even stop them from getting to where they need to be.
Note: The original Sailboat technique doesn’t have a Sun – I added it to give them a feeling of accomplishment as most teams should understand that there are already things that work just fine. And it’s definitely worth the time to help the team to build on this base.
Start by setting clear expectations for the meeting, including the purpose, goals, and agenda. Make sure everyone is aware of the retrospective’s purpose and that it is a safe space for open and honest communication.
Let the team draw a picture of a sailboat floating in the water, and fill half the space above and half below the water with the sun, anchors, wind, rocks, reef, and an island or you can simply print pictures and just attach them to the board or any available wall space. This visual representation can help the team better understand their progress.
Note: Team drawing the boat helps to act as an icebreaker and get the group participating and on the boat.
Decide the topic/theme of the retrospective and name the boat accordingly.
Ask the team to write what their mission is, what they want to achieve, and what their goal is, and add these post-it notes to the hull of the boat. The team can amend or clarify or replace as the game continues.
The boat can be saved and revisited as part of sprint reviews, where sails and anchors can be reviewed, rescored, removed, and new sails and anchors added.
Tips: Ask team members to share their successes and challenges during the sprint or project. This allows everyone to see what worked well and what didn’t, which can help identify areas for improvement.
Ask the team to add sails and anchors to their boat. Sails represent things going well, what’s good, and what is putting the wind into their sails. Anchors are the things that could be going better, the anchors holding them back and limiting progress.
Ask the teams to scale their sales and anchors, their sails from +1 to + 10, is it a +1 or 2, a nice but relatively small in-value sail, or a main sail that’s providing huge momentum, a +9 or +10? The anchors from -1, a minor impediment, or -10 this anchor have stopped us from moving forward at all.
Now team should brainstorm and discuss each note, seek to clarify the meaning of the note, and then decide as a group where on the scale it should be. Teams can vote by Dot Voting. The team can compare Sails and Anchors. Is it a bigger or smaller sail/anchor than the previous one? The key here is engaging in group discussions, awareness, and consensus on what the sail/anchor is and how it impacts the team. Sticky notes may need to be clarified with extra information or split into multiple notes to score separately.
Once all sails and anchors have been discussed and scored ask the team to capture activities and improvements to help raise sails further and raise up anchors. Ask the team to think of small actions that would raise one of the sails, or anchors on the boat by just one point, raise an anchor from a -6 to a -5, or raise a sail from a 2 to a 3. Capture ideas for improvements on post-it notes and place them beside the relevant anchor or sail.
Remember to celebrate success and plan action items for current as well as future obstacles that have been identified during the above brainstorming.
If there are numerous suggestions for raising sails and anchors then team activities like estimation games, MoSCoW prioritization, and Dot Voting to help discuss, rank, and decide upon which improvements to take forward. Map the improvements/actions into the team backlog/future work or on a dedicated change and improvement board to help track and measure progress.
Let’s take an example of a team that developed a mobile app during the sprint. The team was able to deliver the features on time but faced some challenges during the sprint. Here’s how they conducted the Sailboat Retrospective:
Sailboat Sprint Retrospectives are an important part of the Agile development process, as they allow teams to reflect on their progress and identify areas for improvement. However, there are several common challenges that teams may face during these retrospectives. Here are some of the most common challenges and tips on how to overcome them:
The Scrum Master plays a critical role in facilitating a successful Sailboat Sprint Retrospective. Here are some key responsibilities of the Scrum Master in this process:
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