| "Case studies, preparing for a retrospective, leading
a postmortem, and the skills for best learning and sharing knowledge gained from
past ventures fill the pages of this down-to-earth and highly accessible guide
which is especially recommended to those charged with the responsibility of improving
corporate departmental and project team performances." —The
Midwest Book Review
"Here
is a handbook on how to create an atmosphere of mutual trust in teamwork." —Business
Horizons
"While this book has the detail
one needs to understand and apply the specific exercises and facilitation, it
also has the breadth to address a wide range of topics. . . . This book does an
excellent job of discussing the people issue involved in retrospectives and provides
many useful suggestions on how to deal with those issues. . . . "I
found this book insightful, interesting, and easy to read. But most important,
it is full of ideas and techniques that I intend to put to use."
—Linda Westfall
Software Quality Professional
"This is a book to read cover
to cover and then use as a resource, project by project. It is a book for every
process improvement coordinator, project leader, software manager, and consultant
wishing to improve their organization's performance in learning from experience." —Carol
A. Long
IEEE Software
"In reading this book, I most
enjoyed the retrospective exercises. . . . Two of the most powerful exercises
for participants are the 'Develop a Time Line' and 'Emotions Seismograph' exercises.
. . . "The book is well-written, easy to read, and accessible,
especially if you're skimming the table of contents or index to investigate the
next step for your retrospective planning. Use this book, and your retrospectives
will return significant information and save you time on your next project." —Johanna
Rothman
Reflections
"On the cover of Project
Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews there is a quote from Gerald Weinberg:
'This book belongs in the library of every project manager, for any kind of project,
everywhere.' After having read this excellent 'how to' book, I not only agree
with this statement, but I would expand it to include every software quality engineer
as well. "While this book has the detail one needs to
understand and apply specific exercises and facilitation skills, it also has the
breadth to address a wide range of topics, including how to prepare for a retrospective,
how to sell a retrospective, handling retrospectives in the light of legal issues,
collecting project data, where to hold retrospectives, and creating a community.
This book does an excellent job of discussing the people issue involved in retrospectives
and provides many useful suggestions on how to deal with those issues. "I
found this book insightful, interesting, and easy to read. But most important,
it is full of ideas and techniques that I intend to put to use." —Linda
Westfall
Software Quality Professional
"I
recommend this book to anyone who has to shoulder the project manager role—plus
anyone who might like to build a career as a facilitator. The insights into how
people work and interact provided in this book are invaluable for anyone in a
supervisory role who's trying to build a succesful team (that will, in turn, build
a successful product). Project Retrospectives is the kind of book that
can be read cover to cover—and I'd recommend doing that—but it's also
a very useful handbook that most readers will want to reference whenever a review
(even if it isn't a formal rerospective) is coming up. "Kerth's writing
is very easy to read and provides excellent insight into understanding how people
interact with each other when they have different working styles and bringing
them together for success." —Diane Brockman
SQL Server Professional
"Storytelling has certainly been
around as long as there have been programmers to gather round the watercooler
and brag about their latest feat. So it seems logical that we might be able to
learn some things if we plan and formalize our storytelling process. Consultant
and experienced facilitator Wayne Strider described it to me as 'getting the return
you deserve for the investment you made.' As he points out, you've already paid
for the project, including whatever lessons it has for you. You've spent the money
whether you reflect upon and learn those lessons or not and whatever lessons you
don't learn this time around may continue to cost you money in future projects.
"The storytelling process is known variously as a postpartum, postmortem
or retrospective. Whatever you call it, it's very powerful when well done, and
because of the paucity of storytelling literature, Norman L. Kerth's book,
Project Retrospectives, a Handbook for Team Reviews (Dorset House, 2001),
is extremely valuable." —Sue Petersen
Software
Development Magazine
"Norm Kerth has given us a wise and
practical book on project retrospectives. It is destined to be a classic in our
software engineering and project management literature. "If you are
curious, courageous, care about yourself and your teammates, and you are interested
in personal and professional growth, read this book. "Beginning with
his 'prime directive,' you will learn why and how to conduct project retrospectives.
Norm makes a compelling case for the ritual of retrospectives, openly and honestly
presenting the opportunities and dangers. There are many engaging features in
this book: fables that make a point, a detailed description of an example retrospective,
numerous true stories from real retrospectives that grab your interest, cartoons
to illustrate the text, and recipes which provide facilitators with the structure,
group processes and rationale for conduct successful retrospectives activities. "Who
should read this wonderful book? The book's voice addresses the retrospective
facilitator ('must' readers) along with anyone else who wants to learn about retrospectives.
This audience includes project managers and their managers, along with team members. "Why
these readers? Because software project success is all about people, not technology.
How we interrelate, use technology, communicate, and are affected by project history
impacts our work. And if we don't learn from our successes and mistakes, we can't
grow, do better and have our work bring value to our organizations and ourselves.
Project retrospectives are an essential tool toward that end. Norm Kerth's book
helps us use this wonderful tool." —Ellen Gottesdiener
EBG Consulting, Inc.
"If properly done, a retrospective can
be uplifting, as the people in the development team can learn what went wrong,
alter their approach and increase their chances for success in the future. "It
takes a deft hand to perform such an act and Norman Kerth has two of them. His
advice on how to politic your way through a successful retrospective demonstrates
that he understands the egos, stubborness, jealousy, passion, intelligence, and
occasional idiocy of development teams. . . . "The experience and understanding
that Kerth puts forward in this book is priceless and should be a roadmap for
what to do after every project is considered done. Using this map to mine your
experience for the points of success and failure will pay dividends of many different
forms. . . . "If development teams were to begin having quality retrospectives
using Kerth's criteria, then even the most atrocious failure could generate a
favorable return on investment. I consider it to be one of the top ten books of
the year." —Charles Ashbacher
Charles
Ashbacher Technologies
posted on Amazon.com
"Kerth,
a consultant to software organizations, guides facilitators and participants through
the process of the project retrospective using scenarios and detailed, cartoon-illustrated
instructions. The retrospective is a formal method for preserving the lessons
learned from the successes and failures of projects. Kerth shows how to conduct
one in an atmosphere of mutual trust and without fear of retribution. The goal
is for the lessons and changes identified by the community to foster stronger
teams and savings on subsequent efforts." —Jane
Erskine
Book News, Inc.
"This is one of the best
written, best edited, most nicely presented, and most useful software books I've
ever read. "As someone who has facilitated several retrospectives in
the past, I realize how much better I could do the next time with the help of
Norm's wisdom and suggestions. The many personal experiences, perceptions, and
learnings he shares gives the book a powerful vibrancy. Norm has clearly practiced
what he preaches and is passionate about his subject. His sensitivity to the complex
interpersonal issues surrounding project retrospectives will help any facilitator,
participant, or manager get the most out of these important learning activities." —Karl
Wiegers
Process Impact
"I've been looking forward
to Norm Kerth's book since I first learned he was writing it. I need it for my
consulting practice. My clients need it for their process improvement programs.
The software industry needs it in order to become truly professional. And nobody
in the world knows more about project retrospectives than Norm. . . . "Feedback
on software projects—meaningful feedback, at least—is not easy to come
by. Projects often outlive the accuracy of our memories. Even when our memories
are excellent, people leave during the project and take their memories away with
them. So, in order to capture project learnings, we need to plan, prepare, and
practice. And that's what Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews
gives us—plans, preparations, and practice. . . . "Another strong
feature is the book's attention to issues that are sometimes considered peripheral
to the retrospective itself—activities such as selling the idea of retrospectives,
qualifying the potential customer, obtaining and maintaining support, creating
a communty, coping with legal issues, thinking in advance about the what and how
of data capture, and even considering such details as what kind of food to serve
during the retrospective, and when. . . . "Project Retrospectives
is a strong book, full of strong features that will make it the classic work
in this area. In my opinion, though, the very strongest feature of the book is
its many well-designed exercises—exercises that will elevate your chance
of success—whether you are a new or experienced facilitator of retrospectives. "As
I wrote at the outset, I've been looking forward to this book. It was worth the
wait." —Gerald M. Weinberg
Principal
of Weinberg and Weinberg
Adapted from the foreword | 
