DeBono Wheel of Fortune

Time

1 hour retro for a team with 7 members

Setup

Using the site https://wheeldecide.com/ I created two wheels:

One with each team member name.

One with the DeBono Thinking hats (to encourage lateral thinking).

  • WHITE HAT - FACT
    • Make a factual statement about the sprint: e.g. We completed 10 Work Items and didn't finish 2 Work Items
  • YELLOW HAT - GOOD
    • Mention something that we did well this sprint. Try and keep this to how we worked, not the work itself if possible
  • BLACK HAT - BAD
    • Mention something that went badly this sprint. Discuss what we could have tried to do to prevent this from happening, or to reduce its impact on the team
  • GREEN HAT - IDEA
    • What can we try next sprint and what benefit do we hope to get from this
  • RED HAT - EMOTION
    • Make an emotive statement about last sprint.

I've tried to put the framing context for each hat above, but these could be improved.

Notes

I didn't include Blue Hat (Process), as I couldn't think of how to frame it.

The idea being that "Green Hat - Ideas" and "Black Hat - Bad" spark discussion around actions that become the output from the retro. This is not to say that other hats don't also spark actions as they can, but these two are the easiest to take an action from.

Retro Format

  1. Open table discussion around anything the team would like to talk about before we enter the Random stage of the retro.
  2. Explain the format of the retro and make sure the team are happy with running the retro this way... if not have a Plan B!
  3. Spin the wheel for the team member, spin the wheel for the Hat, get the team member to make a statement about the sprint from the perspective of the hat that was chosen. Allow the team to discuss each point if they would like to.
  4. Last 5-10 mins depending on how many people haven't had a say in the retro so far:
    • Make sure everyone in team has had their say;
    • Make sure we have actions from the retro from the discussions we've just had;
    • Open up for any last points people would like to make before the retro is closed