Definition:
The Retrospective meeting is the “Check” part of Plan-Do-Check-Act cycle where key is getting to that “Act” step, that kaizen which will actually change the process and make it things better the next time. It’s not good enough to share how you feel, you need to be able to act. The best way is to capture all this with what is called “Happiness Matric” which is a very effective way of getting at what the kaizen should be, and also which kaizen will make the people the happiest.
Each person on the team answers few questions on a scale of 1 to 5, about how they feel about their role in the company, how they feel about the company as a whole, why do they feel that way, what one thing will make them happy in upcoming sprint? With these questions in a few minutes every person on the team sparks an insightful conversations. This method exposes what is most important for each team member and what they think is most important for the company.
Happiness Metric is a leading indicator which helps in visualizing the aspects that matters most to the team
Further Reading:
Book: Succeeding with Agile Software Development Using Scrum by Mike Cohn
Book: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time by Jeff Sutherland
