add agile retrospective writeup

Author: Matt Swanson

Diff for: _posts/2011-12-01-agile-retrospectives.md

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+---
+layout: writeup
+title: Agile Retrospectives
+categories:
+- writeup
+---
+
+![](/static/agile-retrospectives.jpg)  
+[Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great][link]  
+Esther Derby, Diana Larsen  
+ISBN: 0977616649
+
+---
+
+**What's the point?**  
+Like the title suggests, this book drills down into retrospective meetings conducted by agile
+software teams. Retrospective meetings are really important, but are often either overlooked
+or poorly facilitated.
+
+**How was it?**  
+Awesome. This book made me want to try leading the next retrospective meeting for my team.
+
+An important focus of the book is on how to *design* a retrospective. There is more to it than
+just getting the team in a room and complaining for an hour.
+
+I really liked the list of activities and exercises, especially because the book clearly explained
+WHY to do each activity and what you, as a facilitator, should be trying to gain from them. It's
+one thing to say "have everyone write Explorer, Shopper, Vacationer, or Prisoner on a card" - 
+but the book explains that you can use this to set understand people's attitude toward the meeting
+and adjust your tone/agenda accordingly.
+
+For someone like myself who has never lead a retrospective, this book is a great resource. There
+are step-by-step actions to take, with lots of examples and even guidelines for how to time-box
+each section.
+
+**Who should read it?**  
+All team leads, those looking to become team leads, anyone leading retrospectives - if you
+haven't read this book, I think you are really missing out.
+
+[link]: http://pragprog.com/book/dlret/agile-retrospectives