Regular readers of my blog, they know I consider retrospectives a core aspect of any team. I’m convinced that not everything in the agile world, works in all worlds, I have yet to find a team that does not benefit from doing a retrospective.
Over the years, we have seen a lot of book and resources for retrospectives. Today I realized that although I have published a lot of books lists, I have never published a list about retrospectives:
- Project Retrospectives: Kerth Norman
This is the first book about retrospectives. It’s written in a non-agile world, yet everyone who considers herself an expert on retros should read this book. - Agile Retrospectives: Diana Larsen & Esther Derby
Diana & Esther wrote the first book about retrospectives in an agile environment. This book is a nice mix of theory and exercises that can be combine to create your own retro’s. - Collaboration Explained: Jean Tabaka
Although this book is not about retro’s, the tips and tricks that jean shares are very valuable for facilitators. - Visual Meetings: David Sibbet
Many facilitators like to create visual retro’s. David has lot’s of tips on how to create visual meetings. - Getting Value out of agile retrospectives: Luis Gonçalvas, Ben Linders
For a long time I thought I did not need an extra book on retro’s after reading the books from Kerth, Diana & Esther, and then I read this book. - Fifty Quick Ideas to improve your retrospectives: Tom Roden, Ben Williams
As the title says it, a lot of idea’s. - Improving agile retrospectives: Marc Loeffler
I might be biased about this book, as it contains an exercise from me.
It gives lot of times to make your retro’s better. - Retrospectives for everyone: Madhavi Ledhalla
I just bought this book, I only started reading the book now, yet a book that can convince both Diana & Luke to write a forward and has recommendations from Ben, Jutta, Linda and many others, must be a good book. (The kindle version is also sold way too cheap, so if you are short on cash, buy this quickly before Madhavi raises the price… - Facilitating with ease: Ingrid Bens
- Facilitator’s guide to participatory decision-making: Sam Kaner
These last two books are both old books, yet really good books for facilitators. - The Retrospective Handbook: Patrick Kua
Tip from Jutta (Sorry Patrick I forgot your book) - Retrospectives for Organizational Change: Jutta Eckstein
- Remote Facilitator’s Pocket Guide: Kirsten Clacey, Jay-Allen Morris (Tip from Esther )
- Retrospective antipatterns: Corry Aino Vonge
Although Corry her book is not out yet. I have followed a her workshop a few years back. I used what I learned the next week. I preordered the book. (Tip from Gitte) - Retromat: Corinna Baldauf, Timon Fiddike
This is an online tool helping you to create your own retrospective, that is now also turned into a book. Online you can find versions in many languages. - Fun Retrospectives: Taina Caetano, Paulo Caroli
- The agile retrospective kickstarter: this book from my friend Alexey Krivitsky lets you build 250 different retrospectives. (Translated in 5 languages)
- Retrospectives. A Scrum Master’s Guide: Daria Bagina
- The Guide to Effective Agile Retrospectives: Mark Levison
- Work Retrospective I: improving code
- Work Retrospective II: improve the demo
- Work Retrospective III: a discussion workshop
- Agile Thursday Quiz: retrospectives
- Tips for working with introverts in the agile world
Tools
- Retrospective Poker: Daria Bagina
- Agile Retrospective Bingo: Ben Linders
- Agile Retrospectives Smell Cards: Ben Linders
- Agile Manifesto Retrospectives Question Cards: Ben Linders
Videos
- Tips for Retrospectives from Dave Farley and Aino Corry
- Mastering Retrospective from Zuzana Sochova
- Agile Retrospectives: making Good teams great from Ester Derby & Diana Larsen teaching at Google
What books/resources are missing?
In this covid-19 lockdown, most of us are doing retrospectives remote. You might want to check out my list for remote work.
At the bottom of my own bookpage, you can find all the bookslists I have gathered since 2010.