As I write this blog on Sprint Retrospective, without a second thought in my mind I can avowedly term it as the most important sprint ceremony. A sprint retrospective is an opportunity for the entire Scrum Team to inspect and create an improvement plan to be adopted and acted upon. These conclusions are communicated across and suggestions are incorporated in the next iteration. To benefit the most from this ceremony it’s recommended that the scrum master sets some ground rules and make the floor transparent, enhancing the scrum team’s faith and trust to speak up on their observations. The timing of this ceremony is important and it should be placed right after the Sprint Review and before the next Sprint Planning making it easier for teams to conduct an inspection and later action upon the derived plan.
A Sprint Retrospective gives the scrum team a platform to discuss things that are going well, things that could go better, and some suggestions for changes. It helps promote ownership and responsibility by the project team Common issues that should be addressed.
Suggested read : Basics of Agile – Sprint Retrospective
Agile is all about constant improvement, and this ceremony is specifically designed to help the scrum team do better. Always remember that a retrospective is a fact-finding activity and should not be used to play blame games. End results are always the changes that follow. Ultimately, this scrum ceremony should provide a blameless space for members of the team to provide their honest feedback and recommendations for improvements and drive the change along. In addition to this, all actionable feedback should be collected and assigned so that members of the scrum team understand who is responsible for what.
In pursue of doing things in a better way dev teams should make it their goal to conduct a regular inspection of the iteration by ensuring the on-time completion of this ceremony and tracking identified actions to closure. At times when the team gets a feel that the activity is getting monotonous and not yielding the desired results, Scrum Masters must step in with there creative and thinking hats on. They should try to spice up the activity and not deviate from the goal. For everyone’s benefit, I m sharing the most effective technique to conduct a retro in five stages.
Five Stages to conduct a retrospective
#1 Set the stage
Give people time to arrive and settle down. They need to be in the right state of mind before we kick start the sprint retrospective.
It could be surprisingly beneficial if we conduct a quick team mood check using some fun activity or throw some questions like – If you could describe the previous iteration in a single word, what would it be?
The idea is to bring the teams attention to the last sprint which we are going to talk about.
#2 Gather data
Help everyone remember the turn of events and other important instances that can help the team. Create a shared pool of information (everybody sees the world differently).
It is very important to choose the right format of retrospective to collect the right data. Scrum masters should observe the sprint carefully and set the appropriate environment for the team to freely and anonymously populate the thoughts pertaining to the challenges.
#3 Generate insight
Now comes the part where you need to understand why did things happen the way they did or what can improve. See the big picture by identifying the patterns.
#4 Decide what to do
Pick a few issues to work on and create action plan & roadmap to address the same.
You can consider Five whys, Troika Consulting, or any other method to brainstorm around the most painful areas or the important changes desired by the team.
#5 Close the retrospective
It would be great to re-iterate the agreed action items and collect the team’s feedback on before you close the ceremony. Do not forget to appreciate their accomplishments. You may consider the star of the sprint activity for the team as the closure.
Some useful tips for the ceremony
- Focus on continuous improvement and gather the information that is based on facts, not just feelings
- Bring in as much creativity as you can, within the limit of not deviating from your goal
- Generate meaningful insights from the conversation. If you sense there’s more to be said between the lines, encourage team members to go deeper
- When a suggestion for improvement is brought up, ask other members of the scrum team if they all agree. If so, identify how that recommendation will be brought to life
- Revisit previous suggestions to determine whether the team should keep doing them
- Build the team’s ability to self-organize and at times ask fellow members to run the show
- Share the rationale behind all process decisions and action items.
Here I am sharing few easy yet interesting retrospective formats. Hope you can reap out some benefits adding these fun elements in your ceremony.
- DAKI – Drop, Add, Keep, Improve
- What Went Well, What Went Wrong
- Sailboat Retrospective
- Yeah!, Meh!, Sad.
- Open the Box
If you have more innovative ways to conduct a retrospective yielding desired results do share the same in comments.
