Perhaps one of the most important internal events of any sprint is the Retro. The outcome will often shape the next sprint and how the team completes their work to meet the goals and Definition of Done.
The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness.
Table of Contents
The Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went regarding individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and their Definition of Done. Examined elements often vary with the domain of work. I bold this last sentence as a reminder that every (EVERY) project is unique, and what you did on the previous project, let alone Sprint, may be different this time. The Scrum Team discusses what went well during the Sprint, what problems it encountered, and how those problems were (or were not) solved.
The Scrum Team identifies the most helpful changes to improve its effectiveness. The most impactful improvements are addressed as soon as possible. They may even be added to the Sprint Backlog for the next Sprint.
The Sprint Retrospective concludes the Sprint. It is timeboxed to a maximum of three hours for a one-month Sprint. For shorter Sprints, the event is usually shorter.
While it would be wonderful to ask our teams, “Hey, how’d it go?” (and get an honest answer), that’s not how it works. You don’t need to be a psychologist to understand that sometimes people don’t want to talk about the good, bad, or ugly. As the Scrum Master, it’s your job to be a people-master (a psychologist even) to your team. That means you need to work to get the information required to make the next sprint and the next three after that better.
Make sure you mix up the ideas you use with the team. Keep it fresh for the team, or you may become known as the Sleep Master.
Bring in other PMs or Agile consultants to run a retrospective for a different perspective.
Give the team five to ten minutes to individually answer these questions using sticky notes, one answer per note, and as many notes as they want. Have them place the answers to the questions on a whiteboard divided into three sections. As they put them on the board, have them take turns reading their answers out loud.
The questions:
Note to the Scrum Master, facilitate a conversation on the answers in the “What do we want to change?” category and have the team pick one of the answers to implement (only one, selected as a group).