A question that came up during today's @ProductAether chat:

How do you know a team is good at retros?

It's a "I know it when I see it" thing for me — but off the top of my head I can't easily articulate what I'm looking for.

Which is a sign I need to think about it more :)

Let's write a random list off the top of my head:
* everybody's engaged
* important gets more attention than urgent
* folk focus on turning up the good as much as turning down the bad
* folk come up with multiple options
* folk run experiments

* improvements are tracked across multiple retros
* folk steer their improvement process, using a toyota kata or whatever
* pain/gain points are aligned with organisational goals
* people talk more about the change they want to see than the particular way of achieving that change

* people actually make changes - they don't just talk about the change
* if a problem is small enough to be easily solved, then people solve it in the moment rather than bringing it to the retro — stop the line and all that

* public artefacts on the walls / in slack that talk about the changes that are coming out of the retro
* more team ownership than individual ownership
* no blame
* willingness to go "well - that failed"
* willingness to push to solve problems outside the teams immediate scope

* active outreach to other teams - collaboration on solving larger problems / turning up larger gains

* folk willing to put down one change they're working on if a more important one comes along
* folk can change their process without asking for permission first
* folk are allowed to fail at improving their process (coz failures are inevitable.)

… and I've run dry for now…

I also have to do the shopping.

Any more?