Recently I was asked to facilitate a Sprint Retrospective event for a Scrum Team whose Scrum Master recently moved to another position elsewhere. Although I knew some of the members of this particular Scrum Team, others I didn’t know.
I wanted them to have an experience they could reflect on and through that experience identify some specific ways of improving how they work together. So we experimented using a “Collabinart® Retrospective.”
Before the team arrived for their Retrospective, I laid on top of the table a canvas replica of the 1913 abstract painting by Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, “Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle).” I put the canvas replica at a diagonal so there was no hint as to what was the top of the canvas, and what was the bottom or sides. Then I laid a towel over the canvas so no one could see it.
When the team came in and were seated, I unveiled the artwork. Then I passed out a piece of paper to each team member that gave each team member these instructions. As a team, they were to:
- Create one list the describes this painting
- Collectively determine the top of the painting
- Interpret the painting, that is, explain what is being abstracted by the artist, what is the mood or emotion of the painting, and how should we understand this painting. Whatever their interpretation was, they were to use evidence and sound reasoning to support their interpretation.
The written instructions also said that no one was to touch or re-orient the painting. I also provided sheets of paper that had color copies of this painting so, if they wanted to, could orient the color copies in different positions to see if they could figure out the top of the painting. But I didn’t tell them that’s what the color copies were for.
I didn’t give them any instructions on how to do any of this. I was willing to answer any questions they had, though. I told them that as a self-organized team, they could do this work however they wanted to. I was simply going to observe them and jot some notes down.
What happened next was fascinating to me.
The team had eight people in the room. Two were managers. Of the two, one of the team members had been a manager for years and immediately took charge, offering to create a single list that described the painting. A few members meekly offered some descriptions of what they were seeing; others stayed silent. I kept notes on who was talking, what they were saying, and when they said it.
After only a few minutes (and collecting only a few details), they pondered the painting’s orientation. One lead developer quietly began orientating the color copies in different positions so he could evaluate the painting from different perspectives. A few others did that, too, with minimal talking between the team members. Then some more talking ensued, a few disagreed with the proper orientation, but they eventually settled onto one orientation (they were correct in their thinking).
As they began to wrestle with the interpretation of what they were seeing, one team member, of the quietest, had quipped he thought he saw boats in the painting. No one engaged that team member about why he said that, though.
When their conversation dwindled, I explained to them that what they were looking at was a painting that was displayed at the National Gallery of Art in Washington DC, by the Russian artist Wassily Kandinsky, a pioneer in abstract art. I explained about the differences between his “Improvisations” paintings and his “Compositions.” I also said that what they were looking at — “Improvisation 31” also went by the name, “Sea Battle.” Then I let them continue to talk about the meaning of the painting.
Overall, the team spent relatively little time reasoning through the painting. When the manager who had collected the team’s descriptive word list appeared to be done with this experiment, everyone else was, too.
I didn’t verbally evaluate their work, or offer my opinion on what they had achieved, but I can tell you that their combined effort was reflective of a team that was formed, but not well-formed and not high performing. Their descriptive details were fewer than a dozen words. Their interpretation was weakly reasoned and without substantive details.
Admittedly, not everyone likes interpreting art.
That shouldn’t have mattered to a high-performing, high-functioning team who had work to do together.
At this point, I reviewed my notes and reflected back to the team what I had observed. I reflected back to them how some team members were wordless until someone specifically asked them a question, while others said nothing at all for more than a few minutes. I also remarked that I observed the team immediately doing the work requested of them, but without any discussion or plan on how best to achieve that work.
I asked the team if the way they approached this exercise was like the way the team worked together on their sprints.
The experienced manager quickly dismissed the idea; interpreting artwork was nothing like building software. A few others — the more vocal team members — agreed with her.
But the quieter members answered differently when I specifically asked them for their opinions. They realized that how their team approached art appreciation was not unlike how they work together building software. The vocal people doing this Retrospective were vocal during a sprint. The quiet members in this Retrospective were quiet and too often not engaged enough during a sprint. The inability of the team to capture and leverage everyone’s ideas and perspectives in an art appreciation exercise were behaviors just like what they were experiencing within their sprints.
As I worked with the team to tease out this connection, the whole team came up with specific actions to try out in their upcoming sprint that would help them do two things: 1) be better prepared for their Sprint Planning event (by reading the user stories before the event, and coming with their questions in-hand), and 2) specifically draw out the quiet team members so the quiet members’ ideas, opinions, perspectives and judgments were weighed equally with the more vocal team members’.
This is the essence of the “Collabinart® Retrospective.”
If you experiment with the “Collabinart Retro” with your own agile team, use an abstract artwork like Kandinsky’s “Improvisation 31 (Sea Battle)” and after the team has created a descriptive word list, determined the top of the painting, and developed a well-reasoned interpretation using evidence, then have the team answer these questions:
- How did the team approach the problem? Did they use a Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) approach? Did they just dive into problem-solving complex work without any planning?
- How did the team assess its knowledge, skills and abilities to interpret abstract art?
- Was everyone engaged? Who was engaged and who wasn’t? How did the team maximize each team members’ contributions?
- How did the team organize its work?
- How well did their combined descriptive word list represent everyone’s thoughts?
- How did the team determine the painting’s correct orientation? What methods did they use to evaluate different perspectives?
- How did the team create divergent ideas? How did they converge upon the best ideas?
- How well does the Collabinart Retrospective reflect their working together as a team?
- What has the team learned about each other and the way they work together?
- What improvements will they make from this experience?
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