The Retrospective Prime Directive

Notes

There were some truly wonderful things going on at Polymodal in my first few years. One of my direct reports, Eli, had suggested running regular retrospectives based on a book he had read. The Prime Directive framed the attitude of the entire meeting:

”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.”

--Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Review

“The Prime Directive,” Agile Retrospective Resource Wiki (retrospectivewiki.org)

I think it set the tone and fit with the way I wanted to run a team. I took away:

• We worked in good faith.

• We trusted each other and we valued trust.

• We understood context has many facets, and people always did their best.

• Blame was not welcome. When there was a problem, we worked toward the solution.

The problem is, good faith and trust can only be localized for so long before the toxicity gets in. The Prime Directive did not fit with the “he/she threw me under the bus” mentality at work in some essential parts of Polymodal. Eventually, I learned what it meant to be in a bubble.