# retrospectives Published articles for retrospectives. This is one page of public article previews, not the complete archive. Follow Next page to continue. Summaries are not the original full articles. ## How to run postmortems effectively? DevFeed: [How to run postmortems effectively?]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Peter Bergman Published: 2024-09-17T08:49:33Z Content type: tutorial Language: en Sources: [Volvo Cars Engineering - Medium]() Topics: [incident](), [systems](), [context]() Tags: [blameless-culture](), [errors](), [how-to](), [incident](), [mistakes](), [organization](), [outages](), [postmortem](), [postmortem-documentation](), [postmortem-report](), [processes](), [retrospective](), [retrospectives](), [software-development](), [systems](), [teams]() ### AI overview This article explains how to conduct effective, blameless postmortems after incidents such as outages, production bugs, or service disruptions. It emphasizes identifying root causes, examining systemic factors and context, and improving processes rather than assigning individual blame. ### Source excerpt Incidents are inevitable. As we all know, system outages, bugs in production, or service disruptions, can all have significant impacts. When that happens, the company pays the price. It's better to see it as a chance to learn instead of pointing fingers. This is where postmortems come into play. A postmortem, also referred to as an incident analysis, or retrospective, is a vital practice for understanding what went wrong, why it happened, and how to avoid such occurrences in the future. Understanding postmortemsWhat is a postmortem and why is it important? An incident postmortem is a review process carried out after an incident. Its purpose is to determine the root causes and identify strategies to avoid similar future incidents. What does blameless mean? In a blameless postmortem, the emphasis is on learning from mistakes and improving processes, rather than pointing fingers. By focusing on systems, components, roles, processes, procedures, and not individuals, we can foster a blameless culture where teams feel safe to openly discuss incidents and contribute to meaningful solutions. The aim here is to reframe the discussion to focus on the systemic factors that contributed to the incident which let teams uncover deeper insights and implement more effective solutions. What about the human factor? Even though many incidents can be attributed to being caused one way or the other by humans, due to the human factor, so to speak, it is important that we aim to shift the conversation towards understanding the "second stories" behind the incident. The "first story" of human error focuses on individual mistakes, while the "second story" examines the systemic factors contributing to errors. To do so, we focus on the underlying factors and context that may not be immediately apparent. Through the use of "second stories", human error is seen as the effect of systemic vulnerabilities deeper inside the organization. If we assume that all actions are made in good faith, then what ## Comparing Retrospectives DevFeed: [Comparing Retrospectives]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Adam Published: 2023-09-19T00:00:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Shostack & Friends Blog]() Topics: [retrospectives](), [Security](), [Architecture & Design](), [Microsoft]() Tags: [design](), [forensic](), [investigations](), [logs](), [microsoft](), [report](), [retention](), [retrospectives](), [security]() ### AI overview The article compares Microsoft's retrospective on the Storm-0558 key acquisition with Thornton Tomasetti's forensic investigation of the Arecibo Telescope collapse. It argues that retrospectives preserve authoritative accounts, support organizational learning, and reassure stakeholders, while contrasting the reports' length, authorship, and treatment of evidence. It also examines log retention as a security design choice. ### Source excerpt We can learn a lot from comparing retrospectives ## Measuring Developer Experience - A Balanced Approach DevFeed: [Measuring Developer Experience - A Balanced Approach]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: tobi@techunicorn.builders (Tobias Mende) Published: 2023-08-05T06:00:00Z Content type: tutorial Language: en Sources: [Tobias Mende]() Topics: [Developer experience](), [code productivity](), [developer-productivity](), [retrospectives]() Tags: [culture-developer-experience-developer-productivity-metrics-engineering-excellence](), [developer-experience](), [measuring](), [metrics](), [retrospectives](), [survey]() ### AI overview The article presents a balanced way to measure developer experience by combining quantitative and qualitative methods. It discusses surveys, eNPS, retrospectives, developer productivity metrics, turnover rates, and feedback channels, while noting that individual measures have limitations. ### Source excerpt Measuring Developer Experience - A Balanced Approach Developer Experience is one of the most essential factors for high-performing teams and organizations. Thus, the obvious question is how to measure, assess and understand the status quo within your organization and team. ## Starting Threat Modeling: Focused Retrospectives are Key DevFeed: [Starting Threat Modeling: Focused Retrospectives are Key]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Adam Published: 2020-09-17T00:00:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Shostack & Friends Blog]() Topics: [retrospectives](), [Software Process](), [Development](), [Software Engineering]() Tags: [retrospectives](), [software-development](), [software-process](), [team]() ### AI overview The article argues that focused retrospectives should be an explicit part of threat modeling, especially when teams are adopting the practice. It recommends giving the first retrospective as much time as the threat-modeling work itself so teams can surface concerns, share perspectives, and improve their process. ### Source excerpt Don't skip this important step. ## Using Postmortems to Learn from Mistakes DevFeed: [Using Postmortems to Learn from Mistakes]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Fernando Cejas (me@fernandocejas.com) Published: 2020-06-21T00:00:00Z Content type: opinion Language: en Sources: [Fernando Cejas Blog]() Topics: [Learning](), [retrospectives](), [Resilience]() Tags: [android](), [culture](), [development](), [engineering](), [infrastructure](), [ios](), [java](), [kotlin](), [learning](), [linux](), [open-source](), [postmortems](), [processes](), [programming](), [python](), [resilience](), [retrospectives](), [rust](), [scala](), [software](), [software-development](), [web-development]() ### AI overview The article argues that organizations should treat mistakes as opportunities to learn, share lessons, and avoid repeating failures. It presents postmortems as a tool for drawing useful conclusions and supporting retrospective discussion. ### Source excerpt **Postmortems** are a valuable tool for learning out of mistakes. They provide **useful conclusions** and should be included in retrospectives for further discussion in order to **not fall into the same trap again.** ## Guidance on performing retrospectives DevFeed: [Guidance on performing retrospectives]() Original publisher: [Read original article]() Author: Map Published: 2017-12-26T20:55:56Z Content type: tutorial Language: en Sources: [Craig Kerstiens]() Topics: [retrospectives](), [incident](), [Process]() Tags: [code](), [incident](), [postgres](), [postgresql](), [process](), [retrospectives]() ### AI overview This article explains how to conduct incident retrospectives. It recommends documenting a complete timeline and relevant chat logs while details are fresh, tracing causes beyond the immediate outage, and structuring the meeting around what went well, what did not, and follow-up actions. ### Source excerpt In my career I've had to conduct a number of retrospectives. Ahead of them it already sucked, there was an outage at some point, customers were impacted, and it was our fault. Never was it solely on our underlying infrastructure provider (AWS or Heroku), nope the blame was on us and we'd failed in some way. And as soon as the incident was resolved, it wasn't time to go home and decompress with a beer, it was time start the process of a retrospective. Finding the motivation to get right back to work is tough, but not losing time is important. There is probably a lot out there on retrospectives, and in general I was well rehearsed at them. But since I'd not performed a large scale one in a few years I found myself rusty and thought it'd be good to share some of our process. Capture details immediately It may not be clear if you've not been involved in many, but a retrospective is more than just a meeting to discuss what happened and how to fix it. It's an overall process, it begins with capturing thorough details of what happened. The start is a timeline. The best thing to do is capture the details while they're fresh. Start with a google doc and simply document the timeline of everything. Capture chat logs that are relevant while they're fresh in history and easy to find. The start of an outage likely wasn't the start of the timeline, there may have been something that happened days, weeks, or even years ago. Don't just start from the time things went offline, go back to the causes as much as possible. If code was committed a year ago that was the offender make sure to note that. Running the retrospective (the meeting part) There are a number of various good practices for running the retrospective itself. There are also a lot of different formats, all valid each with their own pros and cons. You can do with a basic timeline, what went well/didn't, do a five whys analysis. I tend to prefer a clean and dry analysis of timeline, what went well and what didn't and what w