Retrospective in Agile: How and why to conduct a retrospective

Retrospectives are a key element of Agile methodologies, allowing teams to continuously improve their processes and performance. This regular meeting provides an opportunity to review the past period, identify successes and challenges, and identify specific steps to improve processes.

Consider how to conduct retrospectives effectively to maximize the benefits for the team and the project.

What is a retrospective in Agile?

Within Agile frameworks, the retrospective takes a key place:

• In Scrum, the retrospective is one of five core events, which also include sprint, sprint planning, daily meetings, and sprint review). Retrospectives in this framework are held regularly.
• In Kanban-teams, retrospectives are not tied to fixed iterations, but can also take place regularly or as needed for continuous process improvement.

“The retrospective differs from other team meetings by focusing on the process of work rather than the product or tasks. It’s a time for reflection and generating ideas for improving team collaboration and working methods.”

Ksenia Filippova, SimpleOne SDLC Product Owner

Rules for conducting a retrospective:

1. Membership: typically includes the entire development team, the Scrum master (or facilitator), and the product owner.
2. Time frame: the duration depends on the length of the sprint, but is typically 1-3 hours. Each stage of the retrospective should be strictly within the time frame, and the facilitator uses a timer for this.
3. Facilitation: the meeting is led by a neutral facilitator, often a Scrum master, whose task is to create an atmosphere for productive discussion and equal participation of all team members.
4. Periodicity: held regularly, usually at the end of each sprint or with a certain frequency in Kanban teams.
5. Free atmosphere: everyone can express their opinions without fear of criticism.
6. Action-oriented: the outcome of the meeting should be a concrete plan for improvement.
7. Diversity of formats: teams use different techniques and methods to maintain engagement.

Why conduct an Agile retrospective

Conducting regular retrospectives is a key element of the Agile approach and benefits the team through regular communication and the opportunity to influence workflows:

• The team is reflective

A retrospective gives the team the opportunity to evaluate their work over the past sprint or iteration to identify both successful practices and areas for improvement.

• The team sees successes and challenges

At the retrospective, the team can identify what worked well and what practices are worth continuing. The meeting also provides a chance to find obstacles and challenges to performance.

• Ideas to improve processes emerge.

The retrospective creates space for brainstorming and sharing ideas on how to optimize work processes, increase productivity and quality of work.

• Relationships within the team become stronger

Discussing and solving problems together promotes team building, develops trust and improves communication between participants.

• Responsibility for results grows.

Retrospectives empower the team to manage their own processes, which increases ownership and motivation.

• Processes are continuously improved

Regular retrospectives ensure continuous improvement of development processes, which is in line with the Kaizen principle of Agile.

• Risk of repeating mistakes is reduced.

Analyzing past experience helps to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the future.

• The team adapts to change

Retrospectives for the development team help them adapt quickly to changes in the project or business environment.

How to conduct a retrospective in a team: stages, methods and techniques

Conducting a retro includes several stages: preparation, data collection, idea generation, action plan creation, and finalization. Each stage has its own objectives and uses specific methods and techniques to maximize team engagement and produce concrete results.

At each stage, it is important to follow the basic rules: participation of the entire team, adherence to time limits (10 to 25 minutes per stage), a safe environment for open exchange of ideas, focus on process improvement and action orientation.

Preparing for the retrospective

Preparation is a critical step that is often underestimated. To have a productive meeting, you need to:

1. Define the objectives of the retrospective – analyze the team’s situation and determine what needs to be focused on, such as improving processes or solving specific problems. The purpose of the retrospective should be clearly stated.
2. Select the time – the entire team should be present at the meeting.
3. Select venues – for offline meetings a comfortable meeting room is suitable, for online meetings it is worth finding a suitable platform in advance to make calls and record the results.
4. Prepare materials and tools – whiteboards, stickers, markers, timer, etc.
5. Select formats and techniques – the format can be chosen based on the purpose of the meeting.

Data Collection

What needs to be done:

1. Create a timeline: draw a line representing the period of the sprint and ask participants to mark key events, achievements and challenges on it.
2. Collect metrics: show the team the key metrics of the sprint (speed, completed tasks, code quality, etc.) and discuss how these metrics relate to the sprint goals.
3. Detect the emotional state of the team: use techniques to determine the emotional background of the team during the sprint.
4. Find successes and challenges: ask participants to write down the main successes and challenges they encountered.

Techniques for data collection:

• Mad/Sad/Glad – participants record on post-it notes the events that triggered negative (Mad, Sad) or positive (Glad) emotions.
• Team Radar – draw a radar diagram with different aspects of the work (e.g., communication, code quality, development speed) on which participants rate each aspect by marking points on the radar axes.

Recommendations for the stage:

1. Ensure the active participation of all team members.
2. Encourage honesty and openness in speaking up.
3. Focus on facts and observations rather than interpretations.
4. Focus on facts and observations rather than interpretations.
5. Use visual methods to present information clearly.
6. Abstain from discussing solutions at this stage – focus only on information gathering.

Generating Insights

What needs to be done:

1. Analyze the collected data: try to identify patterns and trends.
2. Identify the main problems.
3. Gather ideas for process improvement.
4. Group and prioritize ideas: combine similar ones, find the most promising ones.
5. Group and prioritize ideas: combine similar ones, find the most promising ones.

Techniques for generating ideas:

• Brainstorming – the team freely generates ideas without criticism, each idea is written down, for example on post-it notes, for analysis.
• SCAMPER – a method of generating ideas through the lens of action: Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse.
• “5 Why’s”:

1. State the problem.
2. Ask, “Why did this problem occur?”
3. When you receive the answer, ask “Why?” again.
4. Repeat the process until you get to the cause of the problem.

1. Why did the team fail to complete the tasks in time?
   • Because some tasks turned out to be more difficult than expected.
2. Why did the tasks turn out to be more difficult than expected?
   • Because we didn’t take into account all the technical details when estimating.
3. Why didn’t we take all the technical details into account?
   • Because we didn’t consult with technical experts before the valuation.
4. Why didn’t you consult the experts?
   • Because the experts were not present at the planning meeting.
5. Why didn’t the experts attend the meeting?
   • Because we don’t have an established process for involving experts in planning.

The root problem is the lack of regulations on the involvement of experts.

Recommendations for conducting the stage:

1. Encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking
2. Create an atmosphere where participants are not afraid to express any ideas.
3. Avoid criticizing ideas at the idea generation stage.
4. Focus on the quantity of ideas, not their quality.
5. Try to find connections between different ideas and problems.

Creating an action plan

What needs to be done:

1. Prioritize ideas: evaluate the ideas from the previous step, select the most important and realistic suggestions.
2. Develop an action plan: spell out specific, measurable steps.
3. Designate responsibilities: determine who will be responsible for implementing each action.
4. Set deadlines: define a time frame for accomplishing each action, such as a week, a month, or until the next retrospective.
5. Define success criteria.

Techniques for creating an action plan:

1. SMART goals – formulate goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound.
2. Attempt to create an action plan
3. Voting Dots – each participant receives a limited number of votes, which they allocate among the proposed ideas on a digital or physical board.

Recommendations for the stage:

1. Focus on a small number of the most important improvements.
2. Make sure that the goals chosen are realistic and achievable within the next sprint.
3. Clearly articulate each action, avoiding vague wording.
4. Document the action plan so that it is available to the entire team.
5. Document the action plan so that it is available to the entire team.
6. Make sure that all participants agree to the plan.

Closing

What needs to be done:

1. Discuss a brief summary of the main findings and decisions made.
2. Make sure all participants understand the action plan and their roles.
3. Document all decisions and the action plan.
4. Collect participants’ views on the retrospective.
5. Collect participants’ views on the retrospective.
6. Conclude the meeting on a positive note with techniques or games.

Techniques to end the retrospective:

1. Acknowledgement – participants express gratitude to each other for contributing to the sprint or retrospective.
2. Satisfaction Scale – participants rate their satisfaction with the retrospective on a scale of 1 to 5.
3. One Word – each participant describes their impressions of the retrospective in one word.

Recommendations for conducting the stage:

1. Clearly articulate the main conclusions and decisions of the retrospective.
2. Thank everyone for their active participation and contributions to the discussion.
3. Record the results of the retrospective in a place that is accessible to all.
4. Gather feedback on the retrospective process.
5. Collect feedback on the retrospective process.

Tools for the retrospective

Both physical and digital tools are appropriate for the retrospective. If the team meets in person, a piece of paper, whiteboard, post-its and markers can be used for discussion. If the team is working remotely, it’s worth calling in a video call service and using online digital whiteboards or other specialized retrospective services.

To keep the discussion productive, it’s important that the team has a full understanding of the tasks that were completed in the sprint – it’s common to use software product and solution development management systems to track work. For example, the SimpleOne SDLC supports working through Scrum and Kanban frameworks so that teams can track tasks related to product creation and development. The order in the system helps to quickly prepare for the retrospective and not leave any of the sprint tasks unattended.

Frequent mistakes and how to avoid them

The benefits of retrospectives may not appear if the team makes mistakes in organizing and conducting the meeting. However, they can be corrected so that regular retrospectives become an effective tool for continuous improvement of the team and processes.

For example:

• Start, Stop, Continue technique, for which you need to answer three questions: what you need to start doing for the outcome, what you need to stop doing, and what you need to keep doing;
• The 4 L’s (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For) technique – participants tell what they liked about the sprint, what they learned, what they missed and what they would like in the future.

• 1 – Individual work: each participant thinks independently about a given question or problem for a few minutes. This allows everyone to formulate their thoughts without the influence of others.
• 2 – Pair work: participants pair up and discuss their ideas. This provides an opportunity to exchange views and develop ideas further.
• 1 – Working in pairs: participants pair up and discuss their ideas without influence from others.
• 4 – Working in groups of four: two pairs come together to form a group of four. They discuss the ideas developed in the previous stages and choose the most important or interesting ones.
• All – General discussion: Each group of four presents their key ideas to the whole team. There is then a general discussion and summarizing.

Resume

Regular retrospectives help with continuous team improvement, better communication, and increased productivity within sprints. To have an effective meeting, it’s important to follow a structure of stages: preparation, data collection, idea generation, action plan, wrap-up.

It is also necessary to follow the rules: the whole team participates, the meeting has a safe atmosphere for sharing ideas, and the focus is on processes. Using techniques and tools will keep the team engaged even in routine regular team meetings.