A few years ago I was working with a team new to Agile; we were coming to the end of our first Sprint and about to have our first Sprint Retrospective. I booked a meeting to catch up with them prior to the Retrospective because I wanted to explain the thought processes behind continuous improvement. Some of them had never been in a Retrospective before and I wanted them prepared and in the right mindset.
After explaining the basics, in particular, the philosophy of small continuous improvement (Kaizen), I asked them to reflect on our recent weeks together. We'd been through a lot in a short period of time: some Agile training, a team liftoff, their first Sprint. I asked them what they thought would be a good analogy for what we'd done so far.
We brainstormed, silently at first. I had asked them each to draw a picture of their analogy on paper...