ScatterSpoke Blog

Resources, references, experiences, and practical advice from thought leaders around the world to make your development experience more focused, actionable, and effective.

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How ScatterSpoke Developers Improved Flow State Time with AI Coding Assistant Cody

The developers at ScatterSpoke enhanced their flow state time and sped up their delivery process by integrating an AI coding assistant named Cody, which helped automate repetitive tasks, provide code suggestions, and quick-fix common errors. As a result, their workflow improved significantly with increased productivity, enhanced knowledge, improved focus, and reduced coding errors, leading to the delivery of high-quality software products.

John Samuelson

July 4, 2023
•
Data

How Incorporating Engineering Metrics into Retrospectives Can Transform Your Software Development Process

Learn how incorporating engineering metrics into your retrospectives can revolutionize your software development process. By integrating quantitative data with qualitative feedback, you can make more informed decisions, boost productivity, and enhance collaboration. Discover best practices for integrating metrics and find out how ScatterSpoke can help your team unlock their full potential.

John Samuelson

March 31, 2023
•
4 mins
Improvement

How to Improve Retrospective Meetings

What can you actually do to make effective retro a reality? The good news is, it’s not as difficult as you might think. We’ve broken it down into 5 elements to make it as easy as possible to massively improve your sprint retrospectives.

ScatterSpoke Team

November 29, 2022
•
3 mins
Improvement

Why Engineers Should Be In Charge Of Engineer Productivity

Most engineering managers instinctively think of productivity as complex processes like workflows, solutions, and deliverables expressed in purely quantitative terms. The result is a dynamic that’s usually counterproductive. But there is another way.

Oluwanifemi (Nifemi) Ayanleke

November 29, 2022
•
3 mins
Data

Good Engineering Managers Don't Weaponize Metrics

Often that dynamic plays out in metrics and misguided attempts at fostering engineer productivity, usually by measuring the wrong things and offering the wrong incentives. Fortunately, there are better ways to use metrics to genuinely empower engineers to accomplish more.

ScatterSpoke Team

November 29, 2022
•
3 mins
Improvement

Why Retros Are Good For Engineer Enablement

Retros aren't just an Agile thing, they're a critical way to empower engineers and enable them to be in charge of their own improvement.

Oluwanifemi (Nifemi) Ayanleke

November 1, 2022
•
3 mins
Improvement

Improving Begins with Measuring

Failing to measure is the first step towards failure. But, knowing what to measure, why, and how to adjust along the way is just as critical if you want your engineers to thrive.

ScatterSpoke Team

November 1, 2022
•
3 mins
News

Why ScatterSpoke Is Making a Big Change

After hearing our customers tell us what they want from ScatterSpoke, we're responding by evolving to provide you with more tools than ever for empowering engineers to do more.

ScatterSpoke Team

October 12, 2022
•
1 min
Improvement

Why Developers Are Using The SPACE Framework For Productivity

Developers and the organizations they work for are always searching for ways to improve productivity. However, most strategies leave a lot to be desired. Learn why developers prefer the SPACE framework for tracking and improving productivity.

Oluwanifemi (Nifemi) Ayanleke

October 12, 2022
•
3 mins
Improvement

How DORA Metrics Can Unlock Developer Potential

Tracking metrics like lines of code written is a recipe for frustrated developers and poor efficiency. DORA metrics shift that focus to really understand what drives developers so their productivity can be effectively tracked and improved over time.

Oluwanifemi (Nifemi) Ayanleke

October 12, 2022
•
3 mins
Improvement

Using Daily Retros at Agile2022 to Enable Improvement

Agile2022 wrapped last Friday. Thank you Agile Alliance and Nashville! It had been a long time between in-person conferences for our amazing community of agilists, and we were thrilled to be part of it, as attendees, sponsors, and a speaker – our very own Colleen Johnson. The entire ScatterSpoke crew loved seeing so many new and familiar faces (and cool masks!) in-person after so long!

John Samuelson

July 27, 2022
•
4 mins
News

ScatterSpoke Retrospectives - an Atlassian Ventures Portfolio Company - Available on AWS Marketplace

AWS Marketplace customers worldwide now gain access to ScatterSpoke Retrospectives’ platform which enables organizations to make intentional improvements via their proprietary AI-based retrospective tracking tool, Team Pulse.

ScatterSpoke Team

July 12, 2022
•
3 mins
Improvement

Power of Feedback Loops and Retrospectives in Software Delivery Acceleration

Fast feedback loops and effective retrospectives can improve software delivery and make life easier for developers, project managers, and organizational leaders. On the other hand, bad feedback loops and retros can lead to frustration and lack of motivation.

John Samuelson

May 3, 2022
•
6 mins
Improvement

The Importance of Facilitation in Retrospectives

Facilitation is everywhere. The crossing guard facilitates safe and easy travel of children across the street. The doula facilitates an easier birth for the birthing person. Teachers facilitate learning. Everywhere we look, we see the helpers. Those trying to make things easier. 

Melissa Boggs

April 11, 2022
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4 mins
Improvement

Five Things You May Not Know About the SAFe Inspect and Adapt (I&A) Event

The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe … the “e” means nothing…) is the industry leading framework for scaling agile in a business or business unit. It’s used by some pretty big names like CVS, American Express, and FedEx.

Emma Ropski

April 7, 2022
•
6 mins
Culture

Developers Hate Your Retros

Here’s a secret: Developers hate your retros. Not all developers and hopefully not all of your retros, but at some point, a developer has sat there and thought “this retro sucks”. It’s a serious problem, and at the heart of it lies one key concept: continuous improvement.

John Samuelson

October 19, 2021
•
6 mins

How to Run a Retrospective Your Team Can Get Excited About

To keep your team retrospectives productive in the long-term, there are proven tactics you can use as a facilitator or team member. To make sure your team is excited for this meeting and you’re leading them to actionable takeaways, use these best practices when planning or hosting retrospectives.

Colleen Johnson

October 7, 2021
•
4 mins
Data

Team Pulse: The Ultimate Analytics Dashboard for Your Team Retrospective Data

Team Pulse is an analytics dashboard inside ScatterSpoke that does the heavy lifting so you can make data-driven decisions about your team process improvement and see patterns & trends develop over time.

Colleen Johnson

September 16, 2021
•
7 mins
Retro Format

7 Online Retro Board Templates for Remote Teams

The retro board we apply plays a fundamental part in facilitating different types of conversations and instigating a variety of ideas from within the team. Choose the right one for your distributed team.

Colleen Johnson

September 20, 2021
•
3 mins
Data

Visualize Your Team Data from Miro in an Analytics Dashboard. See Trends and Patterns Across Retrospectives.

The ScatterSpoke + Miro integration shows the contents of any Miro retrospective template inside ScatterSpoke. ‍Now, you can gain real insights from past retros, hosted inside Miro, by tracking trends & patterns that will help you make better decisions.

Colleen Johnson

•
5 MIN READ
Facilitation

5 Tips for Facilitating Productive Team Retrospectives

Excellent retro facilitation comes down to five key factors: the right people, getting them talking, avoiding groupthink, actionable takeaways and the tools that make this process simple.

John Samuelson

May 3, 2021
•
7 MIN READ
Data

3 Metrics You Should Review at Every Retrospective

Three critical data points to review during every retrospective will anchor your decisions to change the system in stats, not opinion. Transforming your subjective retro into an efficient, smart meeting based on facts, figures, and quantifiable improvements.

Colleen Johnson

April 21, 2021
•
6 MIN READ
Participation

How to Use the Improvement Rating to Make the Most of Your Retrospectives

Tracking your Improvement Rating in ScatterSpoke can go a long way to maintaining a data-driven, quantitative approach to how well you’re using your time together to improve how you deliver value.

February 4, 2021
•
6 MIN READ
Scaled

Why Scaling Retros Is the Next Step in Your Agile Transformation

Organizational level retros facilitate collective ownership of the company’s performance. They allow people from all levels of the organization to understand their impact on the system and identify ways for improving them.

Colleen Johnson

January 13, 2021
•
9 MIN READ
Remote

Yet Another R.E.T.R.O Format

More often than not retros feel empty, if not forced. Folks just adding cards because they feel they have to have something good to say. I chose this to encourage groups to think and decide what needs focused attention to amplify.

Matt Barcomb

April 29, 2020
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4 MIN READ
Culture

Bringing Focus to Individuals & Interactions While Responding to Tremendous Change

Our agile practices of inspecting and adapting to constantly changing environments has prepared us to be flexible and to experiment. Our Scrum Values have taught us how to be open and courageous. We need to incorporate these values and practices into our everyday lives now, more than ever.

Elizabeth Burgess

April 22, 2020
•
7 MIN READ
Culture

Making meaning of cultural values and preferences through retrospectives

Failing to recognize the diverse values and cultural preferences of colleagues usually lead to harmful assumptions that a difference in behavior is the result of a personal flaw, instead of recognizing it as a difference in social-emotional skills or cultural values.

Brandi Olson

May 1, 2019
•
5 MIN READ
Conflict

Coaching Through Conflict

The tricky side of conflict is that you don't want to eliminate it all together. As long as it is healthy, conflict within a team is actually a sign of life.

Isaac Garcia

September 24, 2019
•
3 MIN READ
Scaled

Running Scaled Retrospectives

A scaled retrospective provides the chance to expand scope of improvements beyond the individual team.

Colleen Johnson

August 9, 2019
•
5 MIN READ
Data

The Importance of Retrospective Rigor for Agile Marketers

Marketers are already in too many meetings; why should they keep up with some ridiculous Agile thing that just takes up space on their calendar?

Andrea Fryrear

October 23, 2019
•
3 MIN READ
Engagement

Break the Ice of Your Retrospectives

When an agile team gets frustrated with the situation where nothing ever changes, it is easy to say that the retrospective became useless.

Daria Bagina

October 2, 2019
•
3 MIN READ
Antipatterns

Stop Wasting Time in Retrospectives

We need to talk about what to change to fix the big problems. These are not short conversations. This should be the priority of our time together as a team.

Colleen Johnson

September 22, 2019
•
2 MIN READ
Retro Format

The “Theory of Everything” Retrospective

They are usually systemic and environmental. Often things that exist in this quadrant impact the other three. It’s critical to address this quadrant because by improving items here, you can see huge improvements everywhere else!

Troy Lightfoot

September 5, 2019
•
3 MIN READ
Engagement

Retrospect on Your Retrospectives to Keep Them Fresh

If you think retrospectives have lost their shine, why not run a retrospective on your retrospectives? Look back at the good ones, and the less inspiring ones, what might you not have tried yet?

Geoff Watts

September 20, 2019
•
3 MIN READ
Remote

Three Rules for Remote Retrospectives

“It felt like, despite all the communication they had daily, they weren't talking about the right things. I presented some potential issues but suggested we ask what everyone else thinks. The response was epic.”

Chris Murman

July 11, 2019
•
5 MIN READ
Retro Format

Seeing the System With the WADE Matrix

This retrospective design makes it simple to facilitate, enjoyable for participants, and opens people's eyes to the cause-effect relationship of the bigger system (beyond the team).

Zach Bonaker

July 3, 2019
•
7 MIN READ
Hypothesis

548 Days to Fix 1 Line of Code

How many retrospectives have you been in where improvement didn't happen? The team meets, writes stickies, forms action items, and not much changes.

Ryan Latta

May 8, 2019
•
6 MIN READ
Antipatterns

Agile Retrospective Antipatterns that Most Scrum Masters Never Realize

I would like to give to the group accountability. They should be the one deciding on this matter since they will be the one acting on it. The coach can ask them the question, "How will you solve this dilemma?"

Luis Goncalves

April 26, 2019
•
5 MIN READ
Participation

5 Tools to Boost your Participation Rate

One of the challenges we face as facilitiators is keeping everyone engaged in the conversation. This is true of sprint planning, story pointing and of course in retrospectives. There can be a lot of underlying reasons that a team stays quiet- here's our top five ways to get them talking again.

Colleen Johnson

May 7, 2019
•
2 MIN READ
Retro Format

Your Retrospective Format Doesn't Matter

Retrospectives are an incredible opportunity for our teams to learn, connect and grow. They don’t stop being productive because they get boring, they stop being productive because they lack actionable data.

Colleen Johnson

April 13, 2019
•
4 MIN READ

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