How can you liberate a meeting without using Liberating Structures?

There is enough LS which you can use to make your meeting productive. However, if you have the feeling that they are overused or you are bored with them, think about the five elements and create your structure.

  1. Structuring Invitation
  2. How Space Is Arranged and Materials Needed
  3. How Participation Is Distributed
  4. How Groups Are Configured
  5. The sequence of Steps and Time Allocation

An example of a retrospective with a new team:
Situation: we have a team of 10 colleagues. A developer and I had just started on the team.

STEP 1:
Ask the group to create two teams and give them the following assignment per team:

Team 1: take 10 minutes to think of all the reasons why this team is the worst team ever. after the 10 minutes, try to convince me that I have made a bad choice to join the team.

Team 2: take 10 minutes to think of all the reasons why this team is the most impressive team ever. After 10 minutes, try to convince me that I have made an excellent choice to join this team.

STEP 2:
After both presentations, give the next assignment:

Team 1: take 15 minutes to discuss within your team what actions can be made to keep the most positive things that team 2 had mentioned.

Team 2: Take 15 minutes to think of actions we can take to dismiss some of the reasons that team 1 had mentioned.

STEP 3:
After both presentations, ask each one in the group to think about the actions mentioned in Step 3 and take five minutes individually to find out how they can contribute to making those actions a success. You can also participate in this. We then share our contributions. Asked them to memorize their contributions, and get back to them in a few sprints.

The original post from Ziryan Salayi can be found here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-can-you-liberate-meeting-without-using-liberating-ziryan-salayi/

Retroformat for teams that have not yet experienced a useful learning retrospective

Team identifies things that help, but the can’t control. “Thank the org” – let them know to continue these things!

Things they can’t control and hold them back… Escalate. Inform mgmt, coaches, etc.

How to facilitate this: https://www.slideshare.net/derekwwade/team-coursesprint-retrospective-module

Found this information on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DerekWWade/status/992842247895945216

Retrotip: Treasure Map

Invite your team to form groups and have them create a treasure map based on their journey so far (or the past couple of Sprints). What is the treasure they’re looking for? What obstacles and traps are on their way? What hidden temples have they found? After twenty minutes of creative work, let the groups present their treasure maps and work together to identify themes and find improvements.

I stole this retrorip from The Liberators 😉