Methods of Work
Retrospective — A Concise Guide: What, Who, How, and Why.
3 successful ways to start evaluating:
Because we advocate that everyone should use evaluations in their projects, you also need to find ways to include them in your work process. At Limetta we work on projects ranging from small to large across a number of different industries.
Depending on time and budget, projects are run in slightly different ways, which means we adapt project structures to the client and the type of project. What all projects have in common, however, is evaluation or retrospectives. Based on our experiences we have identified what we consider successful ways to implement evaluation in a project, which we are happy to share here.
1. Retrospective meetings
At Limetta we like to work iteratively and agilely. We often use a working method called Scrum where a central part is learning and improvement. This way of working involves working in cycles where you constantly create innovation, test and improve. These work cycles are often called sprints and after each sprint the project team holds a retrospective. There you go through how the work during the sprint went, you evaluate yourselves and set up a strategy for what should be done differently in the next sprint. This is a good way to spot and address problems early before they become too big, but also a good opportunity to notice and reinforce positive experiences. Evaluation through so‑called retrospective meetings, before, during and after a project, is therefore something you can use even if you don't work according to the Scrum method.
How does a retrospective meeting work in practice? In the meeting every team member gets a chance to speak for a few minutes
People usually start from the following 3 points:
- Things I think worked well
- Things I think worked poorly
- Suggestions for what we could do better next time
Once everyone has had a chance to speak, the group can jointly decide on any improvements that can or should be implemented. If you've had a retrospective meeting before, you first start by quickly going through the previous meeting's decisions and discussing whether they have helped or not.
2. Stand-ups – short daily check-ins
In many of our projects we run daily check-ins, or stand-ups. The idea is that the meeting should be short, max 15 min
Team members then answer 3 questions:
- What did I do yesterday?
- What will I do today?
- What challenges do I face, is there anything preventing me from moving forward?
Through this simple format you can catch potential problems at an early stage, which can save both time and money. Employees get help and support if they are stuck, and you gain greater insight into each other's daily work. Team spirit also increases when people share their experiences and help each other solve problems.
Here is a template for a stand-up you can download and put up on the wall
template for stand-up
3. Customer evaluations
Customer evaluations are another way you can gain valuable knowledge about your business. Conducting regular evaluations together with your customers regarding collaboration and outcomes can help you become a better partner, and also give new perspectives on things. We regularly carry out evaluations with our customers which helps develop our business by giving us even more satisfied customers, better and more efficient working methods and the opportunity to improve our offering to our customers and partners.
Need help getting started with retrospectives?
