Look back
Sailboat
Also called Speedboat, Speed boat
Picture the team as a boat: wind pushes it on, anchors hold it back, rocks lie ahead, and the island is the goal.
- Time40 to 60 minutes
- People3 to 12 people
- Steps4
What it's for
A metaphor gives people an easier way to say hard things. "What's an anchor for us?" gets more honest answers than "what are we bad at?", and adding rocks brings risks into a retrospective that usually only looks backwards.
It works for a team retrospective and for a product (what drives customers on, what holds them back).
How to run it
Agree the island5 min
What's the goal the team is sailing towards?
Add wind and anchors10 min
What pushes us forward? What slows us down?
Add rocks6 min
What risks lie between us and the island?
Vote and act12 min3 votes each
Vote on the anchors and rocks to deal with first, and agree actions.
Tips
- Spend as long on the wind as the anchors. Knowing what helps is how you keep it.
- Some teams add sun (what makes us happy) or a lighthouse (who guides us). Add frames freely.
Where it comes from
Adapted from Speed Boat, one of the Innovation Games created by Luke Hohmann and published in Innovation Games (2006). The original asks customers what holds a product back.
Pairs well with
Starfish retrospective
A five-part retrospective: keep doing, do more of, do less of, stop doing, and start doing.
Start, stop, continue
A retrospective in three columns: what to start doing, what to stop, and what to keep, which leads straight to changes.
Premortem
Imagine the project has failed, then work out why, so risks get named while there is still time to act on them.