The Best Retrospectives Engage Our brains in the Right Way

Organisational Change can be very challenging.  70% of initiates fail according to Dever Powell as he looks at David Rocks SCARF model for Orgisational Change Management.  Keeping people in a 'Forward State' is the key.  Simply put, this means avoiding triggering Fight or Flight.  This allows people the time and space for their own insights.

http://nihrecord.od.nih.gov/newsletters/2013/03_01_2013/story3.htm

A carefully run Agile Retrospective can keep people in a 'Forward', creative space.  The key to this is Norman Kerth's Prime Directive:  

"Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand." 

http://www.retrospectives.com/pages/retroPrimeDirective.html

By removing blame from the equation we have a much better chance of keep people in a positive, action-oriented frame of mind.  We avoid these 'Away', or fight or flight states of mind.  This allows the full creativity of the brain to be used for problem solving.  With this creativity we can solve problems in a very different way.

My recommendation is to always use the Prime Directive at every turn.  I always read it out at the start of a retrospective, and re-read it if blame or conflict arises.