Using the Prime Directive for retrospectives

In a Retrospective it is important that everyone feels able to speak openly.  A retrospective will only be effective in an environment where there is open discussion and psychological safety. 

This is well summarised by Norm Kerth in what he refers to as the “Prime Directive” for retrospectives.  Norm Kerth’s statement summarises the mind-set for successful retrospectives.

Setting the right frame of mind

When running retrospectives, especially larger group events, it is important to ensure that everyone has this mind-set.  Some people are attending with a blame agenda.  From their viewpoint the team may have failed.  The team may have made incorrect decisions.  Some members of other teams may have been hurt by those decisions.  It can be very hard to set aside the blame that ensures from this

The Prime Directive is powerful because it reminds everyone of a key point.  In a retrospective we are not judging whether people were right.  Everyone made decisions based, as Norm Kerth says, on the situation at the time.  We cannot judge them based on current knowledge.  Our starting point must be that people thought they were doing the right thing.

What are we trying to achieve?

The point of the retrospective is not to judge people’s competence or morals.  It is to look at key areas. 

• We need to understand the outcomes.  What did occur and how did that affect the different people involved? Remember that outcomes may be different for different teams. 
• Secondly we need to look at the root cause.  It is relatively straightforward to understand the outcome, at least at the level of symptoms.  We need to look beyond that and understand why this outcome occurred.

The Prime Directive helps shape our thinking here.  If something went wrong it is easy to call this a “failure” by someone and punish them.  However, if we truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, then we need to consider why it failed despite that.  Did people have the wrong information?  Or the wrong support?  Or missing necessary resources?

A “Prime Directive way of thinking” ties in closely with the idea of “Management as a Service”.  We are tying issues to the teams lacking something that they need.  Management exists, primarily, to supply those needs.  The retrospective is an opportunity to locate those gaps and ensure they are filled so the issue does not recur.

Good Practices

Try using the Prime Directive as a framing exercise.  Present this at the start as a reminder of the mind-set we need to adopt.  It may initially seem strange, but there is value in explicitly reading this out.

These are not just words and fine principles.  For continuous improvement to work, the team and any attendees from outside the team must genuinely believe these principles.