a man writing a letter

Letters to the Future

The Letters to the Future is a lovely way how to look forward and think about the next challenges in a slightly different way than you may use to. I decided to do this format in one of our Retrospectives after finalizing the delivery to a client. And that was a great time to stop for a while and look at what is ahead of us.

No worries! We also talked about how this delivery went but in a different Retrospective session. 

First Session  

Before the meeting, I prepared a template in Microsoft Forms. It is an easy-going tool I use for various types of surveys. 
I set up the name as a mandatory field so I know who wrote what. 

I start the meeting with a check-in on how all are doing and how they feel today. After a nice talk I introduce the Letters to the Future with the following instructions: 

  • Imagine yourself in 3 months (that’s the time box I decided to go with)
  • Think about where you would like to be, what would you do, and what you want to achieve.
  • Now use the following 20 minutes and write your future self a letter. 
  • There is no right or wrong letter! 
  • When your letter is written, we will read them out loud. 

I am not exceptional so I wrote my letter too. 

Dear future me,

I hope you doing fine. Is March and you successfully passed the PMI-ACP exam and finished your certification. Such an accomplishment! Good Job!

You planned a lot with squads and all of those went well hopefully.
I hope you did the workshops and identify new improvements with your squad. Because this could be hard, you know, they are such a great team!

I hope you can keep your meetings under a certain number per week, we agreed on it in January, do you remember? So go and check your calendar now.

I believe that you helped Product Owners with their workload, together with squads managed to plan work for quarters and still were on track.

I hope that developers found added value in estimation, no matter which forms, but still I hope there is progress now. Don’t look down, you still bring value to the teams. Keep going!

I also hope that your X team is progressing with the project and we found out how to deal with all requirements. Because we are proud of our product, never forget about what you as a team achieved together. Such a ride!

Hopefully, you are healthy back from your awaiting trip and ready for better weather, and finally going to the office again more regularly. You know, somebody needs to bring a cake. And of course! The team day in the office had to be awesome! Do it more often.

Fingers crossed and keep going!

When everyone finished their letters, I asked the team to read out loud what they wrote to their future selves. 
I could see that reading out loud what we wrote also meant a commitment from each of us to become our future selves. 
There was a laugh, a great mood, and all of us were smiling. We saw who is the future novelist and for who 4 sentences are “barely enough”. 
Before I wrapped up the session we agreed on a follow-up in 3 months to see, how we stand and what future selves are we becoming.

What future selves we have become? 

The day D has come and again, I prepared our usual MIRO board before the Retrospective started.

As I used the Microsoft Forms to collect all the answers, I had them all with names so I knew who wrote what and could prepare everything I needed accordingly. 

I created a space for each participant with their name, instructions, the letter they wrote 3 months ago, empty stickies for notes, and a scale of emotions.

Firstly, you read the letter silently and reflect on achieving all wanted from the letter. All your thoughts and insights should be noted on stickies so we can talk about them later. 

Then grab an avatar and place it based on how you feel after the reflection.

When everybody is ready, we do the round when each team member read the letter out loud, then shares notes, perceptions, and how they feel about it. 

The added value of this Futurespective is that you think differently than in the usual retrospective. You look and think forward, however, only within a certain timebox. You think about not only what you can do differently but how exactly it is going to be done. 
It does not have to be strictly linked to an iteration, quarter plan, or product. This format can help with building a new team, setting a vision, solving issues, etc. 

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