Open your retrospective visually using pictures

1. Welcome: The facilitator welcomes everyone to the retrospective and provides context. All participants gather in a circle, so they can see and talk to each other well.

2. Spread the cards: The facilitator distributes a deck or a selection of picture cards with the picture facing up on the table or floor in the middle of the participants.

3. Card Selection: The facilitator invites all participants to choose a card. The selection process can be guided by a question, such as

1. Which of the pictures represents your current mood?

2. Which of the pictures describes the last sprint or work week for you?

4. Reflection & Writing (optional): The facilitator asks the participants to write the answer on the back of the card.

5. Sharing: Now the participants are invited to present “their” card to the team and briefly share why this card was chosen. The challenge of choosing a card, as well as the opportunity to communicate through pictures and words, provides a warm-up exercise and makes it easier to address sensitive issues later on.

Continue with retrospective

After this “soft opening” the retrospective continues with gathering more information on the last sprint of collaboration and later deciding what to change or keep doing. For more context, s. "Background" or this blog post: https://metafox.eu/deep-pictures-agile-retrospectives/

Close the retrospective:

To refer back to the opening and close the loop, you can add these steps:

• Personal commitment: Everyone writes down one personal commitment that they take from the retrospective and that they want to follow up on in the upcoming days and weeks.

• Collect cards: The facilitator collects the cards and puts them up on the wall of the team space. If performed regularly the exercise generates a timeline of pictures that represent each team-members’ personal situation over a week, month or sprint. They act as a reminder for the group how far they have come and what they commit to.