No gain without pain? A more enjoyable alternative

As a Scrum Master, I enjoy facilitating retrospectives with my teams. These are great opportunities to exchange insights, learn together, and set the next step in continuous improvement. I love trying out new formats and observing how they work in practice. My main reason is to avoid routine or boredom for the team when sticking to the same retrospective format, sprint after sprint after sprint. I invite teams to take a different perspective by changing formats. Hopefully, with a new perspective comes new insights.

In recent retrospectives, I used the Pleasure & Gain format (check out the FunRetrospectives website for more details). It’s based on the Loss Aversion Theory of Daniel Kahneman, which holds that the pain of losing is psychologically about twice as powerful as the pleasure of gaining.

Team retrospective

This is how the Pleasure & Gain retrospective works:

Step 1: Draw the diagram (see picture)

Step 2: Ask participants to write down all relevant activities and events from the past sprint on post-its, and rate them by positioning them relative to the two axes:

• Did you experience pleasure or pain during this activity/event? Did it bring energy or spark joy? Or not at all?
• Did this activity/event add value to you, the team, or somebody else? Or was it a waste?

Step 3: Review the result and observe if any patterns are noticeable. How are the post-its scattered over the diagram? Where are Post-its clustered?

Step 4: Based on the various quadrants, you can have different conversations:

• The Pleasure/Gain quadrant is called the Magic Quadrant. Activities in this quadrant are nice to do and bring value to the team, users, or stakeholders. So, how can these activities be continued or even expanded? What makes these activities fun and valuable, so we can apply these lessons to activities in other quadrants?
• The Pain/Gain quadrant holds activities that are valuable but less pleasurable. Was the gain worth the investment? Can we turn these negative experiences into valuable lessons? And how can we make these activities less painful? Or, as they say, if it hurts, do it more often…
• The Pain/Loss quadrant is also known as the Big Pain quadrant. The activities here were both painful and a waste of time. How can we avoid or even stop these activities?
• Items in the Pleasure/Loss quadrant were pleasant to carry out but didn’t add value. This is not necessarily harmful, but maybe the team could have spent their time and energy more effectively?

The basic idea is to find ways to move activities closer to the Magic Quadrant.

Personal retrospective

This format can also be used for reflection on your personal situation and growth. I’ve used it several times for my weekly and monthly retrospectives, and found it fun and valuable😉.

• My Pleasure/Gain quadrant includes activities such as family time, reading, yoga, playing golf, and enjoying nature.
• For items in the Pain/Gain quadrant, I look for ways to make it more fun, like making the environment nicer (playing music during administrative tasks) or rewarding myself afterward (napping in the sun).
• I avoid Pain/Loss items as much as possible, and that works pretty well so far.
• Typical Pleasure/Loss activities include scrolling on social media. For that, I use the application timer settings on my mobile phone to restrict my screen time.

Question for you

How would your Pleasure & Gain diagram look? Which activities and events fill your Magic Quadrant, and what is in the Big Pain intersection? What small step can you take now to move items closer to the Magic Quadrant?