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Agile Retroflection of the Day

Posted by Vikas Hazrati on Jan 06, 2010

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Retroflection is a concept in which one substitutes self for environment, as in doing to self what one wants to do to someone else or doing for self what one wants someone else to do for self. Introspection is a form of retroflection that can be pathological or healthy. Based on a similar concept Yves Hanoulle started the Agile Retroflection of the day project.

According to Yves,

On my desk I have a set of cards from FranklinCovey. Every day I select a new card at random. Whatever the message on the card, I try to make this the motto of my day. This year, I want to create a similar experience for agilists around the world. That is why I created a Twitter Account for an agile Retroflection of the Day.

On this account Yves would post one message for people to think about in their teams, oragnization and life. On the basis of his question Yves hopes to find an Agilist each day who would blog an answer / opinion to the retroflection of the day.

Responding to the first retroflection message “If you could change 1 thing today what would it be?”, George Dinwiddie remarked that

That people could ask for, and could accept, the help they need and want.

According to George many teams, organizations do not ask for the help that they need because it might be an organizational culture to frown on people admitting that they don’t already know everything important. There could even be a lack of knowledge about the kind of help that they need which prevents them from asking for help. Apart from this many times they would not accept the help because of financial or other constraints.

Responding to another retroflection message about “ What is one thing you're ready /now/to change? Not the biggest thing, perhaps, but something meaningful.”, Simon Kirk responded that

I'm ready to change the way I communicate my ideas for the better; to slow myself down quickly, give myself room to hear other people more, talk less and hopefully from this help others change if they want to, too.

Follow the tweets for other interesting retroflection’s.

Thank you for this nice post by Yves Hanoulle Posted
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    Thank you for this nice post

    by Yves Hanoulle

    I almost missed it.
    The realize now that the name retroflection is a a bid confusing.
    I'll write a post in a few weeks on why I have chosen it.
    (I want to focus now on getting the answer rolling)

    I have changed the concept a little bit since I have started.
    Read the new rules/idea's here
    paircoaching.wordpress.com/2010/01/05/agile-ret...

    In Version 2.0 I have at least two opinions a day. As I like to promote women in agile, I give them the same bandwidth as men.
    (If men don't like it, more people can write opinions)

    I'm still looking for questions/reflections/retroflections and people that want to answer them; Please contact me on Twitter.com/YvesHanoulle or Twitter/Retroflection if you like the idea and want to help out.

    y

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