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It does not correspond to any user ID in the web application and does not store any personally identifiable information. The cookie is used by cdn services like CloudFare to identify individual clients behind a shared IP address and apply security settings on a per-client basis. These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. He loves to generate new insights by approaching common problems from the other side and trying to deliberately make havoc of the process. Marc has a passion for helping teams that are struggling with agile transitions and overcoming dysfunctional behavior. His passion is to help teams implementing agile frameworks like Scrum and XP and to transform our world of work. Before getting in touch with agile methods and principles in 2006, he was working as a traditional project manager for companies like the Volkswagen AG and Siemens AG. Marc Loeffler works as an Agile coach and trainer in Germany. What do you think about this technique? Do you like it? If you try it, I’d like to read about it in the comments, too. And it’s definitely worth the time to help the team to build on this base. Most teams have something positive to talk about that helps them to understand that there are already things that work fine. I really like this approach, as it helps the team to focus on the good things and also gives them a feeling of accomplishment. There is even a third alternative, where you only focus on the winds and ignore the anchors.

Use these “winds” to define a desirable goal that you will use as true north for the rest of the retrospective.

Ask the team to turn each anchor into goals, desires or wishes and put them before the cloud to represent the gusts of wind pushing the boat forward.First collect all the anchors, as it’s easier for most teams to collect their current problems.Ask the team: “What are the gusts of wind that help our sailboat to move forward” and collect their ideas on Post-Its.You can use this sailboat now in two ways: This gives us the possibility of turning each anchor into a gust of wind. Now we not only have anchors holding us back, but wind that blows to move us forward. If we apply Solution-Focused thinking to the speedboat exercise, the visualization would change into a sailboat and look like this: This definition is quite simplified, but you get the point. If you are working with a Solution-focused coach, she will always try to help you focus on the positive things or turn negative comments into positive wishes. It is a technique that focuses on the solutions (as the name already implies) instead of the problems. In the last few years, I’ve gotten more and more in touch with the Solution-Focused approach. This is always a good starting point for taking the next steps in a retrospective, but the whole technique has one flaw: It only focuses on the negative. Then the team collects all their ideas on Post-Its, puts them below the boat and draws a line from the boat to the anchor. The idea is to draw a speedboat on a flip chart and ask the team, “If our team is this speedboat, what anchors are holding us back and keeping us from getting faster/better?” The origin of this technique goes back to Luke Hohmann, who presented it as one of the innovation games in his book “Innovation Games.” The Speedboat Retrospective is one of my favorite visualization techniques I use in retrospectives.

Sailboat retrospective