This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
See my blog post ‘The Wheels on the Bus Retrospective‘ for the origins of this idea.
There are multiple verses to the nursery rhyme ‘The Wheels on the Bus’, and this retrospective uses four of them. The focus of each verse sets the focus of a question that the team would look to answer.
The wheels on the bus go round and round – what can the team do to keep things moving forward?
The wipers on the bus go swish, swish swoosh – what can the team do to increase visibility/transparency?
The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep – what can the team do to remove/limit noise/distractions?
The doors on the bus open and close – what do the team need to better understand change(s)?
The team are asked to write their thoughts on post-it notes in order to answer these questions, before each category is reviewed, grouping similar themed responses. The team then identify actions that they wanted to take in order to ensure that the wheels keep turning, the wipers ensure visibility/transparency, the horn identifies distractions and we understand the doors of change.
Below are the brief instructions for running this retrospective.
Instructions for running the ‘Wheel on the Bus’ retrospective
Run time: 1 hour (dependent on discussions)
Equipment required: White board (or similar), post-it notes, pens
- Depending on your artistic ability, draw a bus and grid containing images representing wheels, wipers, a horn and doors (alternative print pictures and put these on a wall/whiteboard)
- Explain to you team the meaning of each segment and questions to be answered
- Distribute post-it notes and pens and ask the team to write down their thoughts, comments and/or questions (ideally at least one post-it note per person per segment)
- Review and discuss each segment in turn, grouping common responses
- Create actions and assign owners
It would be great to receive feedback from you and your team on the format of this retrospective and it’s ability to generate valuable actions.