~~ [A Year In Prompts]: Retrospective ~~

Originally written on Dec 21 2018

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Year 2018 is about to end and another hopefully happening year is just around the corner.  Isn’t it so true that time waits for none? Its fascinating that the years just roll by – waiting for nothing.. And with every passing year,  you grow a little, you learn a little, you un-learn a bit, you re-learn a few things and the cycle continues – year after year…

I am officially OOO from Monday and I am back to work only after new year. It was supposed to be a planned vacation.  We had a few places shortlisted for a short trip, but at the end of all the planning, nothing really materialized as my husband who was supposed to be back early next week from his official trip, had to stay back for some more months! Thankfully, we had anticipated this and hadn’t booked anything – Cancellation would have been a pain.

Once I came to know about my husband’s plans, I thought of cancelling my planned leaves of next week and saving those leaves for later, but then, after much thinking, I decided finally that I do need a break. My brother’s here, my daughter has her Christmas vacations too.. I work with Agile scrum project teams, so, the sprint/work is already planned, and there’s nothing critical going on (thankfully) from the work front..I saw no particular reason to cancel my leaves..

Speaking of working with Agile scrum teams, there’s this interesting scrum exercise that we do, at the end of every sprint (a sprint is a duration of a few weeks, anywhere from 1 to 4, where the team commits and delivers working functionality). Its called a sprint retrospective and involves the team looking back at the sprint that just completed and discuss 3 main aspects.

1. What went well ? <Continue doing whatever it was if it helps>
2. What did not go well ? <Identify action items and/or stop doing it, whichever works better>
3. What actions can we take to improve further/What could have been better <Identify new action items to make things better for everyone involved>

This is done every sprint end so the team can retrospect and identify corrective measures for the immediate next sprint that starts.  It helps team to inspect and adapt to changes every few weeks.

So with the year coming to an end, the prompt for you is to consider 2018 as your sprint,  retrospect and share your “Continue doing/Stop doing/Start doing” goals!

As for me, I am off to set my OOO automatic replies 🙂 🙂

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas and A Very Happy New Year everyone 🙂