Norm Kerth's Prime Directive Retrospective - Original Four

Prime Directive Retrospective format

What did we do well?

What achievements are you most proud of from this period?

This topic focuses on celebrating successes and identifying positive patterns. Encourage team members to recognize both large accomplishments and small wins. Look for recurring themes that might indicate team strengths worth leveraging in the future.

What did we learn?

What insights or discoveries will you carry forward?

This topic helps capture knowledge gained through experience. Encourage team members to share both technical learnings and process insights. These learnings often represent valuable intellectual capital that can benefit future work and other teams.

What should we do differently?

What changes would improve our performance next time?

This topic focuses on identifying specific, actionable improvements. Guide the team to think about concrete changes rather than vague aspirations. Look for patterns that might indicate systemic issues rather than one-off problems.

What still puzzles us?

What questions or uncertainties remain unresolved?

This topic captures open questions and unresolved issues that may need further investigation. These items often represent risks or opportunities that deserve attention. Consider assigning owners to research key puzzles before the next retrospective.

When to use this retrospective

• After completing a significant project milestone or release to capture learnings while they're still fresh.
• When the team has experienced challenges or setbacks and needs a blame-free way to discuss what happened.
• For teams that are new to retrospectives, as the structure provides clear guidance while encouraging meaningful reflection.
• When team trust needs rebuilding, as the Prime Directive's emphasis on assuming positive intent helps create psychological safety.

Suggested icebreaker questions

• If you could have one superpower to help the team perform better, what would it be and why?
• What's one unexpected thing you learned during our last work cycle that surprised you?

Ideas and tips for your retrospective meeting

• Begin by reading Norm Kerth's Prime Directive aloud: '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.'
• Consider addressing the 'What still puzzles us?' question last, as it often builds on insights from the other questions and can help identify areas for future exploration.
• Encourage participants to provide specific examples rather than generalizations to make the discussion more concrete and actionable.
• If the team seems hesitant to share, try a round-robin approach where each person contributes at least one item to each category.
• After gathering all reflections, prioritize the items in 'What should we do differently?' to create a focused improvement plan with clear owners and timelines.