How team retrospectives get everyone's ideas heard at Symph

Team retrospectives are how our team talks about the elephant in the room.

Leadership Choice, in The Power of Good Communication in the Workplace, says the ability to communicate effectively is critical in every setting where people interact, and in the workplace it is essential to the company's long-term success.

Our retrospectives were one of the key reasons our remote work transition worked. They are where we take time to sit down as a team and make sure our ideas, concerns and feedback are heard.

How a retrospective works

Since we work remotely, we hold our retrospectives on Zoom. One person hosts the session and takes the team through the topics raised.

We write our concerns, ideas and thoughts in Parabol, a web-based tool where everyone adds them to 3 columns: "What went well?", "What can we do better?", and "What still puzzles me?"

The host can set a time limit to keep things moving. Once the team has raised their topics, the host groups similar ones into categories. Then everyone votes on which topics are worth discussing with the whole Symph team, and the topics are sorted from the most votes to the fewest. The team then discusses the top-voted topics together.

This is an example of a "Questions/Concerns" card that was one of the top-voted cards in Parabol. Interns can raise their concerns with the whole team too.

After each topic, we summarize what was discussed and the goals that came out of it. Everyone is encouraged to say what they think. Checking in with the team and knowing each other's concerns and ideas matters a lot to us, because collaboration, communication and a steady flow of information are what make a company succeed. For a remote team, the Symph Retrospective cuts the feeling of isolation, makes everyone feel heard and deals with concerns.

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Story by Jep, our copywriting intern :)