What is an Agile Team Restart? The first time I heard of the concept was in the Lyssa Adkins' book, "Coaching Agile Teams." This could be triggered by the start of a new product, a new team member, or a request from the team.

Some of the restarts I've witnessed have included an intro game, a working agreement, a definition of done, and a definition of ready. Adkins' book focuses mostly on a restart as a chance to team better...to get to know your fellow teammates, and define what you value as a team. What does the team want to be known for?

In the last couple of years, I've been using Modern Agile to coach the organization, the management, and the teams. It's worked so well, that it wasn't even a choice to us Modern Agile to do a team reset...the only question was "How?." (Learn more about Modern Agile at http://www.modernagile.com/)

I came up with a few ideas, perhaps you'll come up with more. Let me know, and I will add them in - with credit to you, of course. 

Make Safety a Prerequisite:  Personal Journey Map - I draw my own journey line, and use it as an example. I include ups as well as downs, career-related events as well as personal events (children, buying a house, etc.). I give them 5-7 minutes to complete the map, and then we go around the room and listen to everyone talk about their own personal journey. Questions are definitely allowed. This helps the team to become closer, and learn about similarities as well as differences. The most recent time I played this, everyone on the team had started out in a different career than they ended up in. Other teams found that they had all moved around a lot as children, or all liked chess.
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Deliver Value Continuously:  Scrum in 10 Minutes - I walked through the Scrum cycle, asking team members how they had done it in the past - what worked, what didn't. By the end of the cycle, we had a good idea where to start. At the first retro, we discussed what was decided and how that was working out, and made a few tweaks. 

Make People Awesome: Is/Is Not - This is a good way to delve into specific practices, like code reviews, mobbing, and production support. The idea is to have the team write post-its for those things that they are - positive or negative (a team with 100% code coverage, a team that is flexible, a team that starts stand-up late) and things they are not (a team that doesn't argue, doesn't shoot Nerf guns, doesn't miss an Innovation Day). The discussion forms around how they actually want to be, or not! 

Experiment and Learn Rapidly:  Apollo 13 - This is, in my opinion, one of the most Agile movie scenes ever. They have to do an impossible thing, with only the tools they have. They experiment a lot, and come up with something that no one person could have figured out on their own, and work with their business partners (astronauts) to get value out of it. Grab a bag of stuff - any stuff. Take some index cards and write various problems on them (stranded on a desert island, have to get across town in a very short period of time, need to organize a party in 30 minutes, etc.) and only use the things in the bag. You can also use index cards for the "stuff" - maybe they only have $12 cash, three pickle jars, a mouse pad, and a fishing pole...or something. Use your imagination, and they will use theirs. 


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I love SyFy's Shark Week, and counted down the days until the premiere "Sharknado 5 - Global Swarming." Of course, I couldn't resist creating a retrospective...no...a SHARKTROSPECTIVE!
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Supplies

1. Printouts of a handful of your favorite shark movie posters (as seen to the right).
2. Post-Its, or better, 20 cutouts of sharks.
3. Sticky notes and pens, of course!
4. Tape

Setup

1. Tape the shark posters to a white board or large sheet of paper, spaced out.
2. Create your own titles for each shark poster. For instance, because "Sharknado" is so awesome, I labeled that one, "What Went Well."  The label on "Sharktopus vs. Whalewolf" reflected the mashup of the title characters: "Integration Points." Use your creativity and knowledge of the team to put significant labels on each shark poster. 

Activity
1. Hand each team member a handful of shark cutout (or Post-Its) and have them write a subject on each one: something that went well, something that revolved around integration points, etc. 
2. Tape each shark cut-out to the appropriate shark poster, grouping as needed.
3. Discuss, dot vote, or prioritize the items until one or two clear action items come out of the retrospective. 
4. Write the action items on shark cutouts, and hang them in the team area as reminders. 

 
This fun retrospective is based on a popular 80s video game. There's an element of chance, a little skill, and lots of opportunity for celebrating successes and identifying team improvement points. 

Supplies: 

1. Make the DIY Tetris Game from Handmade Charlotte. I used a glue stick to back it with cardstock, but that is not necessary. 
2. Sticky notes and pens, of course!
3. A pouch, envelope, basket - anything to put the pieces in so that they can be drawn out randomly.



Setup: 
1. On a white board or other display, put up the following categories: 

• Green
• Yellow
• Red
• Orange
• Blue 
• Aqua

Activity:

1. The first team member closes their eyes and chooses a piece at random, then places it on the board. Based on the color of the playing piece, the team member writes on a sticky note and places it on the board using the following categories. Feel free to change them to make them more applicable to your team.:

Green: Things that went well
Yellow: Things that were good, but could have been better
Red: Road blocks
Orange: Things that were fun
Blue: Things we did to help others
Aqua: Things others did to help us

If a team member can't think of any one item to go in the category that matched their piece, they can choose to put two items in any of the other categories. 

2. Each subsequent person draws a piece, and places it on the grid, fitting in with the other pieces. 

3. When no more pieces can be fit in, the focus turns to the board. Each team member can vote for up to three board items that they think are the top priority for the team to address.

4. Discuss based on the priorities, and identify any actionable items.  
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Background: The Three Wise Monkeys originated, by some accounts, in Nikko Japan on the temple Tosho-gu. They are named Mizaru (See No Evil), Kikazaru (Hear No Evil), and Iwazaru (Speak No Evil). They often refer to turning a blind eye to current happenings, but also a nod to clean living. Representations of the monkeys are sprinkled all over the world’s culture in various ways: statues, t-shirts, travel souvenirs, and Christmas ornaments, sometimes with the addition of a fourth monkey, “Have No Fun.” There is even a wine whose label features the monkeys and the name “Pinot Evil.” Mahatma Gandhi's one exception to his lifestyle of non-possession was a small statue of the Three Wise Monkeys.

Supplies:

Sticky notes
Pens
Three Monkey graphic cut in three

Activity:

1. Tape each monkey to the wall, whiteboard, or large piece of paper.
2. Create a columns that labels each monkey. You can use “Saw, Heard, Said,” or “External, Internal, Action,” or anything else that seems appropriate to you.
3. Create rows for “Went Well,” “Didn’t Go Well,” “What We Can Do Better.”
4. Hand out sticky notes and pens and ask participants to write anything of note in the sprint that they can think of to fit in the grid.
5. Group sticky notes and discuss successes and potential improvements.

Choose one as an action item to work on during the next sprint. Hang it in the team area along with the appropriate monkey.

Download the file for directions and monkey graphic.