Grouping

Now that the members of your team have presented their thoughts, it's time to show them to each other! Different teams do this in various ways. Here are three options for reviewing thoughts together:

• 💁 The facilitator reads the thoughts one by one to the team
• 🧑‍💻 Team members read only their own thoughts aloud
• 👀 Everyone reads to themselves

Overall, it's a good idea to read thoughts aloud so that everyone hears every card. It's easy to overlook or miss thoughts when reading individually. However, if you are conducting an asynchronous retrospective analysis, individual reading might be the most efficient way to review thoughts.

Once everyone has had the chance to familiarize themselves with the thoughts, it's time to identify patterns and group together those thoughts that seem related. This involves dragging thought cards onto each other to create themes.

Since your team has been closely collaborating throughout the sprint, there will likely be thematic overlaps between their thoughts.

Grouping and identifying patterns can be a collaborative exercise, where the whole team participates in the process. Alternatively, the facilitator can take the lead.