Structuring Retrospectives to Improve Collaboration and Communication

The Challenge: A Siloed Design Team and Misaligned Teams

When I joined France.tv, the design team was operating in isolation, with almost no collaboration or communication with other teams. This lack of engagement led to tensions, conflicts, and severe misalignment between design, product, engineering, and other stakeholders.

The lack of transparency and structured feedback loops meant that:

• Key project decisions were blocked due to misalignment.
• The design team was seen as an obstacle rather than a partner.
• No feedback was shared, making it impossible to improve or adjust workflows.
• Tensions between teams increased, leading to inefficiencies and stalled progress.

When I arrived, one of the major projects was completely blocked—stalled at the design phase—because the lack of collaboration had led to a breakdown in communication between teams.

The Solution: Implementing Cross-Team Retrospectives

To restore collaboration and unblock projects, I worked with DesignOps to introduce structured retrospectives at the end of each PI (Program Increment) cycle, which lasted six weeks. These retrospectives were designed specifically to bridge the gap between design and the tech teams, as the biggest communication issues were with engineering, not product.

How We Structured Retrospectives

1. Dedicated retros for each tech team → Since France.tv had separate engineering teams for web, apps, and TV, we established individual retrospectives for each, ensuring that discussions were focused and relevant to their respective workflows.
2. Cross-team participation → Each retro included both the design team and the relevant tech team, ensuring that all voices were heard and that feedback was directly exchanged between teams.
3. Structured feedback collection → We used a clear framework:
   • What went well?
   • What needed improvement?
   • What wasn’t working?
   • Actionable items for each issue.
4. Documentation & accountability → We tracked all retrospective feedback and actions in Confluence, maintaining a history of progress over a period of 1.5 years.
5. Interactive & engaging format → We leveraged FigJam to make retrospectives collaborative, visual, and engaging, ensuring active participation from both sides.

The Impact: Unblocking Collaboration & Improving Communication

The introduction of structured cross-team retrospectives led to significant improvements:

• Improved collaboration → The design and tech teams began working together rather than against each other, reducing friction and misalignment.
• Clearer expectations & alignment → Regular discussions helped both teams understand each other’s constraints, priorities, and needs, leading to smoother collaboration.
• Actionable improvements over time → With each PI cycle, we iterated based on real feedback, addressing pain points proactively rather than reactively.
• Unblocking stalled projects → The previously blocked project was finally able to move forward, thanks to better transparency and open dialogue between teams.

Conclusion

By implementing structured cross-team retrospectives, we transformed the design-engineering relationship at France.tv, improving collaboration, transparency, and efficiency. Over time, these sessions became a core part of the company’s workflow, reinforcing continuous improvement and team alignment across departments.

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