Proposed edits

* Be more direct by cutting out useless modifiers/qualifiers. 
* Be bold and clear in your statements, but don't over-explain.
* Cut down some sentences that are running slightly long.

_posts/2018-11-08-conducting-good-retrospectives.md

@@ -9,80 +9,78 @@ image: https://res.cloudinary.com/mhanberg/image/upload/t_scale/v1541683676/jame
 image_desc: Photo by Jametlene Reskp on Unsplash
 ---
 
-Your team has probably experienced moments of success or failure, moments of working like a well oiled machine or not being able to stand the sound of each other's voices. What you've probably also done is pass these moments by without taking time to ponder "Why did these things happen"?
+Every team experiences moments of success or failure, moments of working like a well oiled machine, and moments of not being able to stand the sound of each other's voices. But many teams let these moments pass by without taking time to ponder "why did these things happen"?
 
-This is when your team holds a __retrospective__.
+A structured way to make sure your team doesn't miss asking that question is to hold a __retrospective__.
 
 ### What is a retrospective?
 
-A [retrospective](https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-sprint-retrospective) (or "retro") is a recurring meeting used by teams to look back at the last sprint, week, day or any major event in order to figure out what went well and what went poorly. 
+A [retrospective](https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-sprint-retrospective) (or "retro") is a recurring meeting used by teams to look back at the last sprint, week, or any major event in order to figure out what went well and what went poorly. 
 
-The realm of topics is wide ranging: from  mishandled social interactions to achieving a major milestone. These meetings aren't just to make you feel good or bad about yourselves, they're designed to curate items on which your team will take action after the meeting.
+The realm of topics is wide ranging: from  mishandled social interactions to achieving a major milestone. These meetings are not intended to make you feel good or bad about yourselves, they're designed to create actionable items for your team.
 
-Setting aside dedicated time for these matters assures that they will get some attention, and helps keep these conversations from spilling into normal work time. However, this isn't to say that you shouldn't discuss something when it happens.
+Setting aside dedicated time for these matters assures that they will get some attention and helps keep these conversations from spilling into normal work time. 
 
 Along with **learning from your successes and failures**, one of the goals of a retrospective to **build trust among your team**. Teams perform better when they operate in an environment of [psychological safety](https://hbr.org/2017/08/high-performing-teams-need-psychological-safety-heres-how-to-create-it).
 
 ## How to conduct a retrospective
 
-Anyone can host a retrospective, but hosting a _good_ retrospective takes some finesse. There are five key aspects that I believe are paramount to a good retrospective: Facilitation, Conversational Turn Taking, Format/Activity, Action Items, and Trust.
+Anyone can host a retrospective, but hosting a _good_ retrospective takes finesse. There are five key aspects that are paramount to a good retrospective: Facilitation, Conversational Turn Taking, Format/Activity, Action Items, and Trust.
 
 #### Facilitation
 
-Someone should volunteer to facilitate the meeting. This person will lead the chosen activity for the meeting. Depending on the activity, this can include: keeping a conversation timer, taking notes, or tracking whose turn it is to speak. 
+Someone should volunteer to facilitate the meeting and lead the chosen activity. Depending on the activity, this can include taking notes, keeping a conversation timer, or tracking whose turn it is to speak. 
 
-Having a facilitator **isolates the responsibility of running the meeting to one person**, allowing everyone else to concentrate on participating.
+A facilitator **isolates the responsibility of running the meeting to one person** and allows everyone else to concentrate on participating.
 
 #### Conversational Turn Taking
 
-It's very important that everyone can be heard. Your team should decide on a signal that makes it clear you have something to say next. My team has opted to use a finger raise when you want to say something. Once the person currently speaking is done, they or the facilitator would motion to the next person in line to speak. 
+It's important that everyone is heard. Your team should decide on a signal that makes it clear when you have something to say. My team has opted to use a finger raise to signal when you want to say something. Once someone is done speaking, motion to the next person in line to speak.
 
-Often one might have something to say that is tangential to the current conversation, and will delay their turn to speak to let the current thread of discussion finish.
+When someone has a tangential point to contribute, they can delay their turn to speak to allow the current thread of discussion to finish.
 
 The primary motivation for the technique to is **avoid interruptions** and **talking over each other**.
 
 #### Format/Activity
 
-Free form conversation is not conducive to reaching conclusions, so it helps to pick a meeting format that fits well with your team. At the beginning of the meeting, the facilitator will explain the format and confirm that everyone is okay with that decision. Different formats optimize for different aspects of your team: project performance, interpersonal communication, or general frustration.
+Free form conversation is not conducive to reaching conclusions, so pick a meeting format that fits well with your team. At the beginning of the meeting, the facilitator will explain the format and confirm that everyone is okay with that decision. Different formats optimize for different aspects of your team: project performance, interpersonal communication, or general frustration.
 
-Picking a format gives the meeting **structure** and often an **objective**, allowing the team to work together towards a known and common goal.
+Picking a format gives the meeting **structure** and an **objective**, allowing the team to work together towards a known and shared goal.
 
 #### Action Items
 
 A necessary output of the meeting is a list of action items. An action item is a task that requires further action in order to accomplish it and is assigned to a specific person. You've probably experienced the situation where everyone agrees something should get done, but no one ever does it.
 
-Sometimes you run into an action item that isn't a specific task, but possibly a general change in behavior that is meant to be actioned by the whole team. In this case, the real action item would be bearing the responsibility of shepherding the adoption of this new behavior for a couple weeks.
+Sometimes you run into an action item that isn't a specific task, but possibly a general change in behavior that is meant to be addressed by the whole team. In this case, the action item would be shepherding the adoption of this new behavior for a couple weeks.
 
-Leaving the meeting with a list of action items ensures that the tasks you spent an hour finding, **actually get done**.
+Leaving the meeting with a list of action items ensures that the tasks you spent an hour discussing **actually get done**.
 
 #### Trust
 
-Building trust will take some time, but it is the keystone to having productive retrospectives and becoming a great team. 
+Building trust will take time, but it is the keystone to having productive retrospectives and becoming a great team. 
 
-People thrive when working in an environment where everyone has mutual respect and the freedom to speak their mind or take risks. Google conducted a study, [Project Aristotle](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html), on hundreds of teams and determined that **Psychological Safety** is the most [important dynamic of a successful team](https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/).
+People thrive when working in an environment where everyone has mutual respect and the freedom to speak their mind and take risks. Google conducted a study, [Project Aristotle](https://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/28/magazine/what-google-learned-from-its-quest-to-build-the-perfect-team.html), on hundreds of teams and determined that **Psychological Safety** is the most [important dynamic of a successful team](https://rework.withgoogle.com/blog/five-keys-to-a-successful-google-team/).
 
 The leader of the study, Julia Rozovksy, said:
 
 >Individuals on teams with higher psychological safety are less likely to leave Google, they’re more likely to harness the power of diverse ideas from their teammates, they bring in more revenue, and they’re rated as effective twice as often by executives.
 
 ## Case Study
 
-For the last year, my team has had a weekly retro, alternating the format each week. We operate in two week sprints, so in the middle of the sprint we typically concentrate on interpersonal issues or other general frustrations and at the end of the sprint we focus on project-specific issues.
-
-However, at the beginning of any retrospective, we solicit the opportunity to suggest an alternative format.
+For the last year, my team has had a weekly retro, alternating the format each time. We operate in two week sprints, so in the middle of the sprint we concentrate on interpersonal issues or other general frustrations and at the end of the sprint we focus on project-specific issues.
 
 #### Mid-Sprint Retrospective
 
-During the Mid-Sprint Retrospective, we engage in the [Lean Coffee](http://leancoffee.org) activity (unless someone suggests an alternate activity!). The chosen facilitator will explain the chosen activity and pass out the required supplies. 
+During the Mid-Sprint Retrospective, we engage in the [Lean Coffee](http://leancoffee.org) activity. The chosen facilitator will explain the activity and pass out the required supplies. 
 
 The basics of the Lean Coffee activity are:
 
 1. Generate discussion topics
     - Limit to 5 minutes
 1. Vote on topics
 1. Discuss topics
-    - Limit to 5 minutes, then vote on continuing with a 2 minute extension, or else move on to next topic.
-    - Facilitator will take notes and track action items.
+    - Limit to 5 minutes, then vote on continuing with a 2 minute extension, or else move on to next topic
+    - Facilitator will take notes and track action items
 
 Any topics that aren't discussed are carried over to the next meeting if anyone still has interest.
 
@@ -97,17 +95,17 @@ The basics of our version of the Four Quadrant activity are:
 1. The facilitator will draw a horizontal axis on the white board, with the left side indicating _bad_ and the right side _good_.
 1. Each person will give a brief description of their stickies and place them on the axis where they think they belong.
 1. The facilitator then draws a vertical axis, with the top indicating the event was _in the team's control_ and the bottom that it was _not in the team's control_.
-1. The facilitator quickly pulls each sticky to the appropriate place on the vertical axis. This is usually fairly obvious, but the rest of the team will signal where they think it should go in case of disagreement.
+1. The facilitator quickly pulls each sticky to the appropriate place on the vertical axis. This is usually obvious, but the rest of the team will signal where they think it should go in case of disagreement.
 
 At this point, the board should resemble something like this:
 
 ![Diagram of a completed Four Quadrants diagram]({{ 'https://res.cloudinary.com/mhanberg/image/upload/v1541686229/four-quadrants.png' }})
 
-Starting in the top right corner and moving counter clockwise, the team discusses the events in an attempt to learn. If your team is prone to drawing out discussions, consider using a Lean Coffee style discussion timer.
+Starting in the top right corner and moving counter-clockwise, the team discusses the events in an attempt to learn. If your team is prone to drawing out discussions, consider using a timer.
 
 **Keep doing** - good and in your control: give yourselves a quick pat on the back to celebrate good work.
 
-**Improve** - bad and in your control: these are events that your team has the power to avoid in the future. The facilitator will lead discussion on the topics, driving toward actions that can be taken in the future.
+**Improve** - bad and in your control: these are events that your team has the power to avoid in the future. The facilitator will lead discussion on the topics, driving toward specific action items.
 
 **Escalate** - bad and out of your control: these events can only be addressed by someone external to your team. Now is the time to figure out with who to escalate the issue, or assign someone the action of figuring that out later.
 
@@ -117,6 +115,6 @@ Starting in the top right corner and moving counter clockwise, the team discusse
 
 Done right, retrospectives can be a boon for successful and struggling teams alike. 
 
-The goal is to **build a culture of trust** among your team, where everyone has the freedom to express themselves without the fear of being punished for making a mistake or speaking their mind. If there are barriers to bringing up problems your team is having, you can never expect to be able to work through them and improve.
+The goal is to **build a culture of trust** among your team, where everyone feels safe to express themselves without the fear of being punished for making a mistake or speaking their mind. If there are barriers to bringing up problems on your team, you can never expect to be able to work through them and improve.
 
 If your team has never participated in a retrospective, **my challenge to you is to bring the idea to your team and get it on the calendar!**