Retrospective is one of the key aspects of engagement of an Agile Scrum team facilitated by the Scrum Master, attended by implementation team and product owner. These meetings are conducted on the last day of the sprint after demo. Identify start, stop, and continue doing, things to try practices and learnings selecting one or two goals to work on during the next sprint.
Retrospectives is perhaps the most important Scrum meeting which facilitates the principles of evolving an adaptable framework, continuous improvement and inspect and adapt.
It is often observed that Retrospectives can become stale so it’s imperative to keep it engaging and participative and focus on coming up with action items.
Retrospective Guidelines:
The Goal: Create actionable items to improve any aspect of the development process after each sprint.
A Retrospective should:
- Happen after every sprint.
- Be long enough to allow team members to reflect and discuss the previous sprint (45mins – 1 hour.)
- Produce actionable and measurable goals or tasks that can be done by team members.
- Involve all team level developers, PM’s, Product Owners, and anyone else that was involved with the sprint.
- Call out things done well and make a point of continuing to follow the same process that produced those results.
A Retrospective is not:
- A code review
- A blame game (We all should own our mistakes as a team)
- Just another meeting
Retrospective Agenda
Gather Data
- Record a shared set of data
- Consider Objective and subjective data
- Understand facts vs opinions
- The retrospective focus guides what data is relevant for the retrospective
Generate insights
- Move beyond habitual thinking
- Observe patterns
- Understand root causes and influences
- Develop a shared awareness
- Observe / understand systemic effects
Consolidate and prioritize ideas, Decide what to do
- Focus on what the team can accomplish
- Determine one or two actions or experiments
- Don’t necessarily focus on what is ‘most important
Appreciations
“A simple thank you can make a difference; appreciation builds good will, and reminds people that they are valued as human beings, not just as CPUs (Code Producing Units) or FTEs (Full Time Equivalents).”
— Esther Derby
Close
- Recap agreed-upon actions, actors (if needed), and follow up
- Identify ways to improve the next retrospective (retrospect the retrospective)
