What is the Plus Delta template?
Run a simple retro session with your team and gather feedback from your teammates in a quick and easy way. Follow all template steps to encourage the group to share their opinions by using the “improvement” language rather than focusing on the negatives. Assign pluses to things that went well, and you should continue doing or deltas to recommend what could be changed for future meetings.
Kick off the retro by welcoming the team and warming up your audience with engaging activities. Ask them what they liked in the previous sprint and if they would like to continue working that way. Gather all data and discuss all the pluses and deltas your team member put on the virtual board. Decide what to do next and ask about the usefulness of your retro session.
What are the benefits of the Plus Delta template?
Thanks to the Plus Delta template, you can:
- Provide an easy escape from the traditional retrospective routine and replace it with an enhanced session involving all team members.
- Collect feedback and constructive criticism after the sprint, project, or event ends from all your teammates.
- Analyze your work from the last sprint and collaboratively decide what went well and what needs improvement.
- Look at your work from a different perspective and identify things that could improve your team’s performance.
- Use the participants’ responses to evaluate the implementation of the knowledge and skills learned at a later time.
How to use the Plus Delta template in a few steps?
- Open the Plus Delta template on a new board or add it to an already existing one.
- Invite your team to the board by sending an email invitation or sharing the board URL.
- Join the audio and video chat with your teammates to see their faces and talk to each other when conducting the retrospective session.
- Set up the timer before each segment of the retrospective to ensure it doesn’t turn into an endless discussion. You can find the suggested time for each part directly on the template.
- Kick off the retro by welcoming your team, elaborating on the session’s goal, how long the event should take. Remind everyone to approach the session without bias and with an open mind. Ensure everyone that the meeting is supposed to recognize last sprint’s issues and improve incrementally, not to pick sides or argue.
- Start with the Warm Up section. Ask everyone to paste an image, video, or GIF on the whiteboard that best expresses how they felt during the last sprint. Go through all of the assets to get a thorough understanding of your teammates’ feelings.
- Gather more detailed data about Things That Happened Over The Last Sprint and write them down on sticky notes. Place them in appropriate columns corresponding to the sprint’s days and weeks. Pick emojis that best express whether you agree (or not) with the statements and drop them next to your chosen sticky notes.
- Continue to the next Pluses and Deltas section and move sticky notes from the previous segment to the appropriate column — either the one with aspects that went well or aspects that you want to improve in the next sprint.
- Invite everyone to the Voting session focused just on Deltas. Choose with your team members the things you want to change the most. Alternatively, you can also use the prepared dots to conduct a voting session. (If you go for dots, remind everyone to choose a set in one color to know who cast their votes on which sticky note.)
- Select three sticky notes with the most votes and generate solution ideas in the Decide What To Do section. Think of the ways how you can solve the problem or what you would do as a team not to repeat what happened. Discuss the suggestions after everyone is ready and write down action points you will stick to in the upcoming sprint. Connect the sticky notes with lines to know which solution comes from which idea. Convert the sticky notes to Jira issues with two clicks if applicable.
- Finish the retrospective session by gathering feedback from your teammates. Ask them to react with appropriate emojis or write down suggestions for improvement for the next event.