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The DAKI Retrospective

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The DAKI (Drop Add Keep Improve) retrospective is a useful tool for teams who have spent several sprints together. It helps teams discard unproductive elements, maintain effective practices, and brainstorm new strategies.

Preparing for the Meeting

Allocate an hour for this activity and prepare a 2x2 matrix with four equal squares.

Drop

This is an opportunity for the team to discuss what they want to eliminate that hinders their productivity or the quality of their work.

Add

The Add section encourages innovation. It's the perfect place for team members to suggest new technologies, processes, or collaboration methods.

Keep

This section is for the team to reflect on what's working well and should be continued.

Improve

Here, the team can discuss how to refine their current practices to make them even better.

Conducting the Meeting

Like all retrospectives, the goal is to gather feedback, analyze it, and then distill it into an actionable plan.

1. Comment Writing

Allow five minutes per section for team members to write their comments individually. The aim is to avoid groupthink at this stage.

2. Presentation and Aggregation

Ask team members to share their comments with the group. This should be a quick and straightforward exercise. Encourage them to provide context for their notes.

3. Voting

Consolidate comments on the same topic to facilitate discussion and voting. Each team member gets five votes. The voting phase is crucial for identifying actionable topics; everyone should participate.

4. Action Plan Creation

This phase should be enjoyable and constructive. Discuss the selected notes with your team to determine how these ideas could improve your next sprint. When creating action items, ensure they have a clear title/goal and assign one or more owners. Ask your team if they want these items added to their Jira’s board, or if they prefer a separate environment.

Tips for Effective Meetings

Review Previous Action Items

It's beneficial to start a retrospective meeting by reviewing previous action items.

Collect Comments Individually

During the comment collection phase, encourage your team members to contribute silently and individually. This can enhance the value of their comments and potentially uncover unnoticed issues.

Monitor Action Items

Keep track of the progress of action items and evaluate what worked and what didn’t. This can help identify patterns and the real challenges your team faces.

Continual Improvement

At the end of your retrospective meetings, ask for feedback to continually improve this activity. Ask your team members what they liked, disliked, or would suggest for future meetings.

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