I would love to see retrospectives where managers one or two levels up attend (usually it’s just the devs), listen to issues and address things that need support from a larger point of view. Agile theoretically should transform whole organizations that way.
Employers who want to hear from you will foster an environment that is open to discussion and even polite dissent. When an employer formalizes that mentality and slaps a label on it you can be sure that it’s a managerial con.
As a VP Eng, I've found that it can definitely hurt for upper management to get involved in retros. I try really hard to create bottom-up empowerment where individuals and teams can solve problems and improve their processes independently. That kind of ownership is really powerful. Retros really help with that. Plus, from my perspective, I can just read retro-notes to find common threads across teams that may require my help to improve or fix (e.g., if we're consistently underinvesting on testing or if aren't providing enough avenues for career growth or ...).
I obviously can't speak to your experiences, but what you're describing sounds really dark: management "conning" management. I hope you've been able to get away from such places!
Even at one point when we felt like retrospectives were getting less effective we actually retro'd that and made a bunch of changes to the process (namely, checking in a set number of weeks after each retro to follow-up and see whether action items were indeed followed through on)
(and hi Ozzie)
If that's not the case, it's not really a retro.
We have that too. The only thing that’s missing is follow through :)
From my experience, business units need just as much coaching on agility as development teams. It's hard to change culture, but it's essential the BU gets out of the way (let the team own how they plan on delivering a solution) and facilitates empowerment of change for the team to thrive.
Again, from experience, the main driver of apprehension is middle management feeling the squeeze from making everything transparent. They're use to being the routers (worst case, bottlenecks) of information and work, when in reality their role should be to empower the team with the resources they need to own their work. The shift in focus from delegation to facilitation is essential to the whole process, making retros more effective once realized. Empowerment builds in psychological safety for the team to sink their teeth into their own issues and solve those issues themselves.
Another main driver of apprehension is power within the team. If there are only 1 or 2 main members of the team that dictate the pace of the conversation, that crowds out the rest of the team from buying in and/or providing their insights. The entire team needs to be empowered to own their success, not just a handful of members.
I notice this all the time, some folks might be really outgoing, and love to talk and drive conversations, while others are content with staying silent. But all opinions on the team are valuable.
I've experienced this first hand where I've worked on great teams, and we all got involved in discussions about equally. I think it's easy to get someone quiet to speak up (if they have thoughts about the topic at hand they aren't saying), the more difficult challenge, at least for me, is trying to quiet down the team members that go on tangents.
There are so many dimensions: shy v. not, or introverted v. extroverted, or active v. passive thinker, or oral v. written communication, etc. Ideally you shape practices that can account for this diversity of thought.
And +1 to setting expectations so that people who are very vocal don't take up all of the space.
