Hi there,
Welcome new subscribers! 🎉 This is the third issue of our awesome, weekly newsletter.
The weekly goal of this newsletter is to supercharge your remote, cross-functional collaboration.
Every newsletter highlights:
⚡ Supercharge of the Week
🚀 Remote Octopus Resource of the Week
🐙 Jobs That Might Require a Remote Octopus
⚡ Supercharge of the Week
Raise one of your 8 hands if you’ve ever forgotten to hold a project retrospective. It happens to the best of us! Wrapping a project can be filled with confusion – and sometimes a feeling of wow-I’m-glad-that’s-finally-over for everyone involved. The retrospective often gets dropped somewhere amidst that mayhem.
Every time we drop a retrospective, we lose a valuable opportunity for continuous improvement.
Remote Octopus recommends advance scheduling project retrospectives. Get that retrospective on the calendar after you hold a project kickoff – and it’s one less thing to think about as you dive into the deliverables.
Example in Action:
Calendar Invite Title: Project Octopus Retrospective
Description:
Congratulations on the project kickoff! Dropping this time on our calendar to hold for the project retro. Looping in all RACI project stakeholders. Feel free to add anyone else needed. As a reminder, we’ll use the usual retro discussion questions. It will be here before we know it!
Why retro? So many reasons. One of our company values is Continuous Improvement. Feel free to DM me in Slack if you ever want to chat more about how retros can improve your workflows.
Scheduling your retrospective in advance cultivates:
Accountability: When a retrospective is scheduled, project team members know in advance that there will be an opportunity to discuss what worked well during the project – and what did not. Dropping the ball on a key deliverable now means that the ball drop will likely be openly discussed as a team. Folks become more invested in wanting to cultivate and build out project wins to celebrate together during the retrospective conversation. Plus we hold each other accountable as we go.
A Growth Mindset: Every new project is a new opportunity to learn. All in the name of continuous improvement! Scheduling a retrospective in advance signals to the project team that we’ll be learning together.
Psychological Safety: Retrospectives demonstrate that feedback will be honored and synthesized. We jump into deliverables with a higher level of trust.
And remember these retrospective scheduling best practices:
Determine who will be invited to participate – typically the entire project RACI chart.
Aim for a 30-60 minute conversation depending on the project and team size.
Book the retrospective about 1-3 weeks after the final deliverable allowing time for celebration and rest in between.
Pivots along the way? Scope creep? Adjust the calendar invite as needed.
In the calendar event, include The Retro Template and encourage the team to pre-think on the reflection questions prior to the upcoming retrospective.
🚀 Remote Octopus Resource of the Week
Improved collaboration. Increased employee engagement. Fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
Want all of that for your team? Start implementing regular project retrospectives.
If you’re an Agile practitioner, then this all might sound familiar. The last principle of the Agile Manifesto is: “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly.” The perfect fit for The Retro Template.
Check out The Retro Template!
Looking for additional Remote Octopus resources? Check them out here.
🐙 Jobs That Might Require a Remote Octopus
Director of Operations | Brightwell
Developer Advocate | Databento
Product Manager, Community | Whatnot
Note: These jobs are not sponsored and are all currently listed as US remote. If you’d like a job featured [for free!] in a future Remote Octopus newsletter, email: [email protected]
📬 Want more Remote Octopus? Read our past newsletters here.
👋 Want to connect? Find us on LinkedIn.
📚 Read the Remote Octopus Disclaimer.
