Tired Of The “Start-Stop-Change” Retrospective?

Are you tired of yet another “start-stop-change” Retrospective? 😴

Sure, it might only take 30 minutes, but what’s the point if it doesn’t add value and only leads to frustrated team members because they lost many hours of focus? 🤷‍♀️

Why don’t you schedule 90 minutes for the next Retrospective using a format that allows you to identify meaningful improvements? A format based on “Strategy Knotworking.” It offers a set of questions to develop strategies for tough challenges.

Strategy Knotworking is an approach for shared sense-making and strategizing. It helps groups of any size build the skills they need to adapt to sudden change. With Strategy Knotworking, everyone is involved in making sense of their environment, identifying the most pressing challenges, establishing the baseline starting position, developing promising ideas for dealing with their challenges, and defining the first steps for getting started.

Strategy Knotworking taps into everyone’s experience, intelligence, and creativity while continuously (re)answering six core questions. You can turn it into a 2-day company-wide workshop or keep it simple by only answering the six questions with your team.

What is the fundamental purpose of our work? 🎯

Why do we exist as a team? A purpose is the main reason for working together; it’s the inexhaustible reason for a team to exist. A clear purpose helps teams align toward a shared goal and, as a result, gives meaning to all the other steps.

Where are we starting, honestly? 🤷‍♀️

Explore the state of your team. Discuss team dynamics, the activities you do as a team, the state of the product you’re developing, how you collaborate with stakeholders, the support you receive from management, etc. Ideally, use real data — for example, a product like Columinity. This makes it an evidence-based conversation instead of gut feeling and intuition.

What is happening around us that demands creative change? 🧐

What has changed in the other teams? What is happening in the broader organization? What are the market circumstances that might influence you?

What are the critical uncertainties and paradoxical challenges we must face to make progress? ❌ ✅

• How can we find a good balance between innovation and maintenance?
• How can we increase our autonomy and remain aligned with the corporate strategy?
• How can we work closely with our stakeholders/customers and focus on solving complex problems?

Based on what we discovered, what is now made possible?

Reflection on your purpose and what is possible can generate ambitious and actionable plans. How can we make progress on the challenges we face? What does living up to our ambition look like?

What are our next steps, and how will we know we are making progress?

What are we going to do in the next iteration? What steps can we take without needing approval or resources from others that are entirely within your discretion to act? Identify metrics allowing you to measure the progress.

With Columinity — a product to help teams improve with scientific insights and evidence-based feedback — we support this flow using real data. If you’re interested in learning more, check the following articles:

• An in-depth series on Strategy Knotworking by Keith McCandless
• Paper: Liberating Strategy — by Keith McCandless and Johannes Schartau
• Blog post: Strategy Knotworking — Turning Ideas And Ambitions Into Reality
• Blog post: Develop And Evolve Sustainable Strategies With Strategy Knotworking

This might actually become a valuable and meaningful Retrospective!

Why don’t you give it a try?