Sprint Retrospectives Emphasize Reflection on Process

How many of us can confidently say that we are conducting sprint retrospectives correctly?

There is no absolute answer to this question, because the operation of Scrum varies from team to team. I think the way of doing retrospectives also varies from team to team. However, I believe that the purpose of “reviewing the process” is the same for all teams.

In this article, I have tried to summarize what kind of event a retrospective is, as well as common mistakes and tips, as compactly as possible. We hope it will be especially helpful for teams with a short history of Scrum operations.

What is Sprint Retrospective?

A Sprint Retrospective is a Scrum event. The timing of the event is after the Sprint Review, i.e., at the end of the Sprint. Participants are all Scrum team members except stakeholders. The timebox is no more than 45 minutes per sprint per week.
* For 2 weeks per sprint, the timebox is 90 minutes max.

Purpose of a Sprint Retrospective

The purpose of a sprint retrospective is to improve the process. By improving the process with each sprint, the structure is designed to improve the team’s performance each time the sprint is run.

Common mistakes

A common mistake made in sprint retrospectives is to focus only on individual events and then exit. For example, ending with “yesterday’s weather improved” or “we did not achieve the sprint goal” does not lead to process improvement.

If yesterday’s weather improved, the team should discuss “why it improved” and “how we can further improve yesterday’s weather. If the reason for yesterday’s weather improvement is “I worked more overtime than usual” and “I was able to digest items without rework,” the implications are very different, aren’t they?

What is important is to tackle the next sprint better. To this end, it is ideal to conduct a review focusing on the process.

Tips for Sprint Retrospectives

A recommended framework to use for retrospectives is GKPT, which is an acronym for Good, Keep, Problem, and Try, and is based on the following perspectives

Good: What was good and went well
Keep: What should be continued in Good and Try
Problem: What was a problem, what did not go well, and what could be done better
Try: Measures to improve the Problem

The point is to look at the Problem from a broader perspective. If you think only in terms of “problems,” you will focus on the problems that occurred, but this will not allow for a wide range of improvement. However, if we also consider “what went wrong” and “what could have been done better,” we can easily come up with wisdom to improve the current situation.

At the end of the day

The Sprint Retrospective is an important event for improving team performance. As mentioned in the introduction, the objective of “improving the process” is the same for all teams, although each team does it in a different way. There is no need to make big improvements. Making even small improvements at each sprint will lead to the continuous growth of the team. Let’s work with the mindset of “small is good, big is better.