Starfish Retrospective
Better known as the Starfish retrospective, this technique was developed by Patrick Kua with the intention of helping teams carrying out a job better understand what they did wrong and how they can make things better. There are numerous levels of activities that go into getting something done and it is very important to get to the root of the issues. instead of just listing down the problems with the process, the Starfish exercise encourages workers to think beyond traditional perspectives and truly understand where they went wrong.
A cost-effective way of learning about the opinions and concerns of employees, the Starfish retrospective was developed by Patrick Kua to help teams better understand what they did wrong and how to improve. The main purpose is to evaluate which operations and activities need more resources and which ones need less in order to improve business results.
Categories:
- Keep Doing: Operations and activities that are adding value to the organization
- Less Of: Practices that could be improved
- More of: Activities that could be more widely adopted for better results
- Stop Doing: Activities that are not adding value and should be stopped
- Start Doing: New practices that could add value to the organization
How to run a Starfish meeting:
- Create a starfish diagram with each category as one of its arms
- Ask employees to fill in each arm with their opinions
- Give 2-3 minutes to each employee to read out their ideas
- Allow for an open discussion of about 10 minutes for each category
- Design a strategy to effectively implement the discussed points
- Appoint competent personnel to oversee implementation
- Check on activities deemed harmful to the business to make sure they are being let go of
The starfish meeting is adjourned with a positive vibe as it starts with negative topics and ends with new strategies being implemented. This motivates employees and encourages their loyalty to the organization, resulting in long-term benefits for the firm.
