Retrospectives Best Practices

RETROSPECTIVES: 
The purpose of a retrospective is to inspect how the previous sprint went with regards to people, relationships, processes and tools. This is where we reflect on ourselves and our work in order to identify the good, the bad and future opportunities.  

Retrospectives allow us to create an actionable plan to implement improvements so that we can become better at what we do. After all, the bad habits we have developed over the years are not going to disappear with the wave of a magical wand & a "bippity bippity bop!". Teams have to continually work to reinforce good patterns of behavior and eliminate the not so good. 

BEST PRACTICES:

1.) Hold a retrospective at the end of every sprint. (Very Important.)

Basic Rules of Engagement:

• The discussion focuses on the team (rather than individuals) and understanding (rather than defending)
• All attendees are honest and transparent while treating each other with respect
• The emphasis is on improvement; not criticism or attack
• The attention is kept to items the team can control
• All opinions are welcome

Retrospective Process:

• The ScrumMaster shows the previous retrospective action items and follows up on their completion. 
• The ScrumMaster also reviews Sprint metrics with the team (burn down/up, team velocity, cycle time etc.)
• The areas of discussion have been prepared ahead of time and are visible to the team (this can be on a physical white board or virtual board). Some potential categories are as follows - but there are MANY MANY others you can choose from:
  • What worked well for us during the past sprint?
  • What did not work well for us doing the past sprint?
  • What should we do differently?
• The team takes 10-15 minutes to reflect on the previous sprint in order to answer the three questions above. The entire team is engaged and each person contributes to each category.
• Stickies are placed on the board below their associated category (<-- this assumes your team is colocated, if distributed, use a virtual whiteboard like Mural)
• All items are discussed amongst the team and grouped (like with like) by the team. This nuance is important because the retrospective IS NOT FOR THE SAKE OF THE SCRUMMASTER, but is FOR THE TEAM. Their contributions subtly push them to the forefront of this ceremony as opposed to being passive observers. 
• Each team member votes for three items they would like to see implemented. Typically, they vote on the items for improvement, not the things that went well. Because, well, that just makes sense.
• The top 3 items are discussed amongst the team to determine measurable action items.
• Measurable action items are assigned to an individual and followed up on during the next retrospective.
• The meeting ends. Smiling, the team exits with a renewed excitement and optimism for the approaching sprint. 
• All stickies from the retrospective are posted in confluence.

TIPS FROM OTHER SCRUMMASTERS: 

• Because we have a team member off-site, we bypass the physical stickies & board in favor of www.noteapp.com (free for up to 2 people). The site allows us to collaborate fully by creating virtual color coded stickies which are used for dialogue. Since we can all view and discuss the stickies simultaneously, each team member is engaged and present.
• I request two stickies per team member, since we’re such a small team. It’s a challenge, but they usually come through. 
• What has helped my team is a neutral category or column.  We go through the typical what worked well and what didn’t, but I also have a spot for both which I refer to as neutral.  This has allowed the folks on the team to bring up something that they could classify in both the “worked well” and “didn’t work well” column and I’ve found that with a neutral category it helps to bring out comments, thoughts, etc. that may not have come up because it wasn’t clear cut which bucket it fell into.   
• We start retrospectives with Appreciations.  It’s a nice way to say thanks to individual people in the team or the whole team for something to specifically call out.  Like thanks for the extra effort in getting X accomplished or thanks for helping me do X.
• Try to schedule your retrospective as soon as possible. We found that team members forgot  what worked and what didn't work when the meeting was held too long after the sprint ended. 
• Post meeting notes "privately" in confluence so only you and your team members can access.  This will help the team stay honest about continuing to do what works, starting new things to improve processes, and stop doing what isn't working.
• If you have shy team members, be sure to remind them to bring their items to the meeting ahead of time. In the beginning, I would start by sharing what I believed worked and didn't worked. This would get the ball rolling. As time went on I would simply call people out if no one volunteered to speak first.
• Everyone should be reminded to NOT take any of the negative feedback personally. Remind the team the goal is to improve as a team.
• Give shout outs to team members who recommended or suggested a new process, that worked. This is great way to encourage others to share their ideas and suggestions in the future.
• Encourage team members to come prepared with a solution to an issue. For example: The complaint is Standups are taking too long - much longer than the allocated 15-min timeslot. The team member should also be prepared to offer a way to resolve this issue such as use an egg  timer to be sure each participant doesn't go over their 2 minutes. This will prevent the team from just sitting and dwelling on what didn't work without some type of solution to the issue in mind.
• We’ve combined the what didn’t go well and what we should do differently. This really makes everyone think about how we can improve and also helps it from feeling too negative.
• We are a small team too, and generally, even though my team members are not shy, we get along well, communicate well, and go smoothly through our sprints without really any issues to discuss. Probably any team that has members that have worked together for a while are like this. I always start each retrospective by reviewing the last sprint. It lets us add any items back to the list that still need work, and kind of puts them in the mindset of the meeting through reflection.