Agile retrospectives are a core activity to every agile framework. Most commonly known as a Sprint Retrospective in Scrum, its a ceremony held at the end of each sprint. It gives the team an opportunity to learn, and therefore improve, from the experience of the just-concluded Sprint. In other words what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what can be improved for the next sprint. It really allows the team a chance to evaluate their processes and provide input towards what worked well, what didn’t work well, and how they can improve.
As problems are identified, the team will brainstorm solutions and then commit to them for the next iteration. At the end of the next iteration, the team will decide whether or not those committed solutions had any impact and make necessary adjustments. The team should always be looking for ways to improve performance and productivity, even if everything appears to be running smoothly.
The Sprint Retrospective is facilitated by the Scrum Master, and attended by the Product Owner, the Development Team, and anyone else whose contribution is desired. The Scrum Master works to keep people focused and the meeting in its time box (typically one to three hours), and makes sure that each participant describes these three things:
- What worked well, that we should do again
- What didn’t work well
- What changes we should make for next time
The Scrum Master records this information, and facilitates discussion during or after its collection to identify what changes the Team intends to implement for the next Sprint.
Retrospective Guidelines:
- Held on last day of sprint
- Length of retrospective should be from 1-3 hours
- Team evaluates what was done correctly
- Team evaluates needed improvements
- Team creates plans to implement those solutions
- Team identifies any potential roadblocks for the next sprint
Watch out for some of these common pitfalls:
- Ganging up on each other and blaming others for any failures. Remember, the retrospective main purpose is to focus on the process.
- Not all team members want to participate. Try to break the ice at the beginning of the meeting by asking each individual to describe in one word how they felt the last sprint went.
- Not following up on actions items for the next sprint. Best practice is for the team to come up with a list of 3 action items to improve upon for the next sprint. Place these action items on the sprint board and assign to those who will be taking responsibility.