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For certain two things will always happen on any job – an opportunity to say “Hello” and a time to say “Good-bye”. The “Hello” part usually happens in the initial meet-and-greet or interview and is your opportunity to make a first impression. People know how to do this and are often showing their best behavior. The good-bye is something that is often neglected or not handled well. In most cases, people do not know what to do and in many cases teams are dissolved without any closure – people are moved on without any consideration of the real connections they have made with each other and the work they produced.
Everyone is familiar with Bruce Tuckman’s famous Norming-Forming-Storming-Performing model from the 1960’s, but I doubt many people realize he added a final phase called Adjourning ten years later. I want to describe a technique I use to help people through the Adjourning phase and allow people to reflect on their experience on a team share what valuable experiences they want to take forward with them. This exercise is combination of the Locate Strengths and Identify Themes exercises from from Agile Retrospectives by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen.
Here are a few things I have learned that make the experience more meaningful and enjoyable for the participants.
Finally, the interview questions. Feel free to add your own variations or additional questions