The What Did You Learn? Retrospective Template
What is the What Did You Learn retrospective technique?
"Retrospectives are always about the same thing, over and over again. We deal with what went well, what didn't go well, and we define an action plan to improve as a team. But, unfortunately, we must say it's becoming boring for us." -Anonymous, 2021.
If you share this point of view, now would be a great time to break the retrospective routine. The Neatro team has come up with a new retrospective idea named What Did You Learn? that truly breaks the good old rules of a "traditional" retrospective.
Instead of going through facts and events by focusing on what was efficient or not, this activity lets your team members share what they've learned all along the way. 📚
During the last Sprint, what did you learn about yourself? About the team? About the Sprint and the deliverable? Or about anything else that would be valuable to share?
This retrospective technique brings a fresh perspective that heavily relies on everyone's learnings. So don't be surprised if you find out that a joint event brings out very different lessons learned from one team member to another.
The 4 elements of What Did You Learn?
Why & when should you use the What Did You Learn retrospective?
This facilitation technique is a good fit for any Sprint (or Iteration) Retrospective.
As we mentioned earlier, What Did You Learn? greatly emphasizes on each member's learnings acquired during the last Sprint. As a Retrospective facilitator, you might want to use this activity to both break the retrospective routine and celebrate the team members' learnings. 🙌
What Did You Learn? could also be particularly effective for a quarterly team review.
If you want to bring a unique perspective to your next retrospective - and save much preparation time and efforts - we strongly suggest you to try the What Did You Learn? template on Neatro.
