Energy Levels Retrospective

What Is An Energy Levels Retrospective?

With an Energy Levels retrospective you can assess how your team feels about their work. It's a great way to make sure everyone remains motivated while identifying various activities which might drain the energy from some members on projects throughout each Sprint/project cycle. 

What tasks give you more than enough joy? These are things that charge up our teams with excitement or leave them feeling refreshed after completion! Think of these as those special efforts where we don't mind spending time because they're so enjoyable.

Energy Levels retrospectives can prompt reflection in the following ways:

Energy Levels Retrospective Structure

What tasks give you energy?

These are the kinds of things that charge your team up and make them feel excited or refreshed. Think of these as the kind of activities that make you forget about the time and give you a sense of flow. For instance, research papers or small UI fixes that give users bliss.

What tasks take energy away from you?

These can be tasks that drain you, that leave you feeling like maybe it’s time to call it a day. It’s helpful to remember that they don’t necessarily have to be challenging tasks. Energy is finite, and these are tasks that consume a lot of it. For example, production on call, database migrations and so on.

How is your energy level heading into the next sprint?

Depending on the situation, this category can be as simple as low, medium, or high, though feel free to let team members elaborate. If you want to be more precise, ask your team to estimate their power level in percentages. Determine whether it is due to something that happened in the previous Sprint or something in the upcoming one.

Benefits Of Running An Energy Levels Retrospective

The Energy Level's retro can help you find activities that are draining the limited supply of energy your team has to do effective work. Look for things like rare or non-repetitive tasks, which might be more harmful than helpful if they take too much from one person at a time. You could also try asking everyone what their favorite part about working here is so we know how best to balance out our efforts. Look for ways to do more high payoff productive activities in order to accomplish the goals set out by management.

When Should You do An Energy Levels Retrospective?

Retrospectives are an excellent way to help your team identify trends in how they feel about work. They can pinpoint issues with processes, tasks or even stakeholders that may be putting them down mentally before it's too late. 

Running an Energy Levels retrospective is a helpful way to spot trends in how your team feels about work. They can help you identify processes, tasks and even stakeholders that can leave your team in a rut. A low-energy team can develop low morale, low productivity, and low job satisfaction. This is a very practical way to spot early signs of burnout and to take action before things deteriorate.

Final Thoughts

The Energy Level exercise can be a highly effective method for assessing how your team is feeling about their work. You can combine this with a retrospective tool like GoRetro to efficiently run your retrospectives with ease. With these tools, including tens of effective retrospective templates, your team can collaborate and work their way to more productive and successful Sprints!