ABSTRACT
Many organizations have trouble with post-project reviews. Once the project is winding down and the team is dispersing, it can be difficult to find energy for a review. If the review does happen, it's often little more than an unstructured discussion about people's gripes. If any useful ideas do come up, it's hard to get anyone else to pay attention to them. Knowing this, no-one makes attending post-project reviews a priority, and the cycle continues. Fortunately, agile software development approaches have reinvigorated the idea of conducting learning-oriented reviews at the end of iterations, phases and projects. Some good books have assembled a range of techniques for planning and conducting retrospectives. This chapter presents a case study that examines some of the factors that contribute to a successful post-project review or retrospective. Retrospectives are primarily about learning. Retrospectives are just one type of project review, albeit one with a strong focuses on team and organizational learning.
