5 things to avoid for succeeding with Sprint Retrospectives

Retrospectives are an integral part of the Scrum framework, retrospectives in general are not only reserved for Scrum teams, it’s common to be used in any team or group setup that has spent some time working together and wish to to look back, inspect, reflect and adapt.

Having facilitated over a hundred retrospectives, I have found 5 things that can hinder the effectiveness of the Sprint Retrospectives and affect the morale of the team.

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What is a Sprint Retrospective?

It’s an event that is part of the Scrum Framework and described in the Scrum Guide as below.

Note: The last update of the Scrum Guide brought some changes and the Sprint Retrospective section was also updated, I have reflected and written a post about my views on those changes.

The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness.

The Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went with regards to individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and their Definition of Done. Inspected elements often vary with the domain of work…