One of my favorite Set the Stage activities is Pictorama. It is easy to produce, fun for the team and gets people in a creative space to do the work of the retrospective.
Steps:
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Facilitator spreads a pack of pictures on a table.
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Team members pick a picture that represents the sprint for them.
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When everyone has their picture, each person describes what it means to them.
Ideas for generating pictures:
- Use your favorite image search engine. (I prefer one that lets me choose creative commons images so that I don’t have to worry about copyright.) I shoot for 3 or 4 images per team member so that they have enough to choose from without being overwhelmed.
- Using search terms that would appeal to an 8 year old will help you get a fun variety. For example “weird bugs” or “strange animals”.
- If your team has some drama afoot consider searching for emotion words. Coupling an emotion word with an animal name will give you pictures that folks can talk about safely. For example “sad cat” or “angry animals” .
- If your retrospective has a theme use that for your search.
- Download your images into a special directory so that you can find them later.
- Printing Images (Windows)
- Select all the images you want to print.
- Right click and choose print
- Choose 3.5 x 5 in (4) on the right hand side. This will give you consistent pictures sizes that are easy to cut with a paper cutter.
- Print.
Over time you will have a pack of pictures that you can rotate through. And if your day is going bad, you can hunt for “weird toads” to cheer yourself up. It’s for the retrospective, right?
Green Turtle By Brocken Inaglory– https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10489090
Ostrich photo credit: Ostrich (Close-up ) via photopin (license)
Colorado River Toad By H. Krisp – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16549904