💚 Schedule a Yearly Retro With Your Team

Hello and Happy Thursday!

It’s November and we are creeping closer and closer to the holiday season, so you know the rest of the year is going to fly by! This is the perfect time to sit down, look back, and do some end-of-year reflections. I know what you’re thinking -  “I don’t have time for that, Jill!” - and believe me, I KNOW.

The end of the year can be so hectic with the holiday fun (and stress) and lots of people on PTO while you’re desperately trying to finish up your 2024 projects. But a yearly retrospective is an exercise you’ll definitely want to squeeze in, and your future self will thank you.

Why is this process so important? When you think back on your projects from this past year, you can probably name your favorites, and those that caused you the most frustration. But if you and the members of your team were to each make a list of the top three wins and top three lessons learned for the year, would they match? Can you even remember the details of your first projects of 2024? I know it’s a struggle for me!

True to the mission of this newsletter, we have done a lot of the legwork for you and created a step-by-step guide to hosting an End-of-Year People Team Retrospective Workshop. It’s chock full of templates and instructions and all of the parts of this process that would otherwise take up precious headspace. I hope you’ll take a look, see how easy we’ve made it for you, and schedule your workshop in the coming weeks. 

Yours in looking back to look forward,

Jill

P.S. This process can be used by ANY team interested in doing a retrospective - we’re just extra passionate about supporting people ops teams.

Look Back to Look Forward

Need a little more convincing on the value of a team retro? Here are three reasons for doing a comprehensive People Team Yearly Retro for your HR/People Ops team:

1. Our work matters too. The foundational purpose of People Ops is to help others. Between supporting business objectives, functional and leadership teams, and individual employees, it’s easy to get caught up in helping others solve their problems and reach their goals. But the goals and priorities of People Ops are just as important. After all - our work has a very tangible impact on every single employee.

2. You won’t remember how you did it. Maybe you did something really cool or got great results from a new project or strategy, and you plan to build upon it next year. Well, now’s the time to document it before the logistics you ironed out and speed bumps you encountered become fuzzy memories.

3. No one’s perfect. Every year is an opportunity to learn something and build upon the great things you’re already doing. Innovation is important and not every idea will be groundbreaking. Documenting what you tried that didn’t go as expected is just as important as celebrating the wins.

Now that you’re convinced and ready to start - let's begin!

Forward Planning Your Workshop

We have created the EOY People Team Retrospective Workshop | A Step-By-Step Guide, and we’re giving it to you for free! It’s a comprehensive resource to help you execute a 2-hour workshop with your team, including:

• Workshop requirements, purpose and goals

• Pre- and post-workshop email templates

• Instructions and questions to add to a survey to be used in the workshop

• A full facilitation guide that you can use to guide your group through the workshop step-by-step

• Pretty much everything you need to host an ultra-productive two-hour workshop with your team

It’s basically a fill-in-the-blank template to wash away your dread and make this vital project something you can look forward to. You’ll come out of the workshop with a valuable list of 3 wins, 3 lessons learned, and 3 opportunities for the coming year. Take a look!

Post-Retro Action Planning

We’ve added one additional component to the End-of-Year Retro process this year - action planning. In the guide you’ll see it marked as optional, but if you can find the extra 30 minutes I think you’ll find it time well spent. 

You’ll find an action-planning worksheet that will help you turn your three opportunities into a set of specific, attainable, measurable goals so you can start working toward them. This would be a great exercise for a smaller group to tackle about a week after your workshop and should only take about 30 minutes.

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