Write it down before you look back
Before discussing outcomes, write what you expected, then check it against the original plan. Hindsight tends to rewrite what we remember expecting.
Resilient TeamRelational Game
The Retrospective
from reviewing history→to updating internal maps
The Goal
Extract learning from failure and completion fast to improve the next cycle.
Ideal For
Post-project reviews, end-of-quarter resets, sprint retros, launch debriefs, and any high-frequency team that’s shipping faster than it’s learning.
The Shift
From reviewing history to updating internal maps.
The Science
Teams that debrief in a structured way tend to perform better afterwards. Once we know how something turned out, we tend to remember it as more predictable than it was, so writing expectations down first keeps the lesson honest. In animal studies, dopamine neurons respond to the gap between what was expected and what happened, and that gap works as a learning signal.
The Retrospective, step by step
- Write it down firstBefore anyone discusses outcomes, each person writes what they expected going in: the hard part, the easy part, the big risk.
- PredictTurn over the original plan and compare: where does what we remember expecting differ from what we wrote down?
- CompareSort the surprises into three buckets: easier than expected, harder than expected, didn’t predict. Facts, not people: what did we know at the time?
- UpdateEach person drafts one new expectation, “Next time we expect X, because Y”; the team picks the ONE that would change the next cycle most.
- Carry it forwardName an owner and a signal: “At the next cycle’s kickoff, [owner] will put our new expectation on the table. We’ll watch for [signal].”
- Book the next onePut the kickoff and the next retro in the calendar before anyone leaves.
The techniques, and why they work
Sort the surprises
Easier than expected, harder than expected, didn’t predict. Judge each decision by what was known at the time, not by how it turned out, and look at the middle of the cycle, not just the end.
Carry one new expectation forward
“Next time we expect X, because Y,” with an owner who puts it on the table at the next kickoff and a signal to watch. Book the next retro before you leave.
Selected research
- Tannenbaum, S. I., & Cerasoli, C. P. (2013). Do team and individual debriefs enhance performance? A meta-analysis. Human Factors, 55(1), 231–245.
- Ellis, S., & Davidi, I. (2005). After-event reviews: Drawing lessons from successful and failed experience. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 857–871.
- Fischhoff, B. (1975). Hindsight ≠ foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1(3), 288–299.
- Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381.
- Baron, J., & Hershey, J. C. (1988). Outcome bias in decision evaluation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54(4), 569–579.
- Kahneman, D., Fredrickson, B. L., Schreiber, C. A., & Redelmeier, D. A. (1993). When more pain is preferred to less: Adding a better end. Psychological Science, 4(6), 401–405.
- Schultz, W., Dayan, P., & Montague, P. R. (1997). A neural substrate of prediction and reward. Science, 275(5306), 1593–1599.
Also runs as a half day · P2.7 HD
The Retrospective – Half Day
Half day (3 h 30 min), “Learn, then plan”: this lab in the morning, P2.3 Energy Mapping for Impact in the afternoon, with pre-work and a 30-day check.
from reviewing history, then planning as usual→to updating our expectations, then planning with them
The Goal
Learn from the cycle just finished and build what the team learned into the plan for the next one.
Ideal For
Quarterly resets, planning off-sites and the gap between two launches or sprints, when a team is about to plan the next cycle the way it planned the last one.
The Science
Teams that debrief in a structured way tend to perform better afterwards. Once we know how something turned out, we tend to remember it as more predictable than it was, and we tend to underestimate how long our own work will take. People also tend to overlook subtraction as a way to improve things. In animal studies, dopamine neurons respond to the gap between what was expected and what happened, and that gap works as a learning signal.
The techniques, and why they work
Write it down before you look back
Before discussing outcomes, write what you expected, then check it against the original plan. Hindsight tends to rewrite what we remember expecting.
Plan with the new expectation on the wall
Map the next cycle’s work, then ask where the new expectation should change an estimate, a priority or what we protect. We tend to underestimate our own work, so the plan starts from what the last cycle actually took.
Stop one thing, then write the kickoff
Choose one Stop, one Protect and one Install, and write the kickoff as if-then plans with owners and dates. People tend to overlook subtraction, so stopping is a real option.
Selected research
- Tannenbaum, S. I., & Cerasoli, C. P. (2013). Do team and individual debriefs enhance performance? A meta-analysis. Human Factors, 55(1), 231–245.
- Ellis, S., & Davidi, I. (2005). After-event reviews: Drawing lessons from successful and failed experience. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(5), 857–871.
- Fischhoff, B. (1975). Hindsight ≠ foresight: The effect of outcome knowledge on judgment under uncertainty. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 1(3), 288–299.
- Buehler, R., Griffin, D., & Ross, M. (1994). Exploring the “planning fallacy”: Why people underestimate their task completion times. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67(3), 366–381.
- Schultz, W., Dayan, P., & Montague, P. R. (1997). A neural substrate of prediction and reward. Science, 275(5306), 1593–1599.
- Adams, G. S., Converse, B. A., Hales, A. H., & Klotz, L. E. (2021). People systematically overlook subtractive changes. Nature, 592(7853), 258–261.
- Rubinstein, J. S., Meyer, D. E., & Evans, J. E. (2001). Executive control of cognitive processes in task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 27(4), 763–797.
From the research
The thinking behind this lab, published in full: