Running Retrospectives

An Agile Retrospective is my favourite Agile meeting, even if you don’t do any other “Agile” at least do a Retrospective. On the other hand if you’ve been doing retrospectives for ages and get the same results consistently, then you’re doing it all wrong.

A retrospective (or “retro”) is a chance for the team to get together, reflect, learn, and improve. We used to call them project post mortems, but the difference is that retros are done while there’s still a chance to fix problems before the project finishes. Agile is about continuous improvement, and this is a chance for the team to improve itself. Retros give the team a break, time to relax, surface issues and spend some time to figure out how to move more efficiently next sprint.

If your team does sprints then the retrospective is best placed at the very last meeting of the sprint, after the showcase (so we can reflect on feedback from stakeholders). A retro is about a 60 to 90 minute meeting with team (optional PO, SM and definitely no management). The main activity is for the team to reflect, inspect itself and to collectively identify actionable items for improvement. In the retro we create a safe place for the team to discuss ideas (Vegas Rules) and focus on team (not individual performance with no blame.

Prime Directive

“Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could, given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand.”

–Norm Kerth, Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Review

Here’s how to run a great retro:

Choose a quiet, safe, informal place – could be virtual, team area, meeting area, park, bar etc.
Choose 3 questions that will bring out any issues the team seems to be facing. (pro tip: use a different 3 questions each time, this will help surface different issues each time).
Pose the first question, start with a positive question like “What went well”. This starts the retro on a positive note and is easy to answer.
Then pose a second question to bring out some of the undesirable elements and then a third question on the changes that the team is looking for.
Allow everybody time to silently brainstorm their most relevant answers to each question before coming together to discuss each one briefly. It’s about the team, not individual, focus on facts. Sticky notes are great for this.
Commit to actions as a team and add them to the Team Charter or work Backlog

Please enjoy your retrospectives and the improvements they can bring to the way your team works together.

Here’s a few ideas on retro questions to use

Positive Question	Negative Question	Change Question	Additional
Propelling us forward	Holding us back	Watch out for
What went well	What didn’t go well	What to change
What went well	What didn’t go well	What have I learned	What still puzzles me
Glad	Sad	Mad
More of	Same	Less of
Questions	Frustrations	Shout Out
Definition of awesome	Current State	Next State	Next Steps
More of	Keep doing	Less of	Stop doing
Something Old	Something New	Something Borrowed	Something Blue ☹
What worked well	What didn’t work well	What will we do differently
Liked	Learned	Lacked	Longed For