Alf, at 6’ 6”, was tall, lanky and in his mid-50s. He was helping me clear up after his first retrospective on this team. “The conversations in these retros,” he said in his broad Essex accent. “They can be pretty raw, almost emotional.” Then he paused, and thought for a moment. “But I guess,” he said eventually, “After you have pretended to be an elephant in front of your peers, anything else goes, right?”

In this session, we'll explore how to bring excitement and fun to your retrospectives, making safe spaces that deepen the learning for your teams.

We will explore a number of concepts including:

- The value of a check-in and why anonymity is less important that we think it is.
- Why getting people to laugh is so important, the serious side of fun.
- How the environment can help a team become more objective, the value of surprise and the unexpected.
- Putting people at “unease”.
- How a retro can help build cohesive teams and why team cohesion is so important.
- Tips learned from the field on how to run effective retros.

This will be a highly interactive session and we will be on our feet exploring a range of activities and facilitation techniques.