Running a sprint retrospective
A retrospective is a ceremony held at the end of a sprint, after the sprint review and before the next sprint’s planning. A retrospective allows the whole team to review what worked, what didn’t work and look at possible actions.
Here’s some tips I’ve found useful when running sprint retrospective sessions.
The day
Try running in two week or monthly sprints, on a Wednesday to Wednesday. Wednesday can often be a preferred day as it’s not the first day back of the week, or the last and there is no break between the sprints. Mondays and Fridays are often days people take off , for long weekends or bank holidays too.
Time
Try a 10am start, to allow for some admin and last minute prep beforehand. Set a time limit that is relational to sprint duration. e.g if you’re running a one month sprint, your retrospective should be no more than 3–4 hours and no more than 2 hours for a two week sprint.
A different environment
If you have the luxury of meeting rooms, use them! Remove yourself from the office, to disconnect and get everyone to focus on the task at hand. This way people aren’t distracted with a Hip Chat or Slack or feel tempted to answer the phone. If you’re a remote team take the time to set some guidelines and ensure a screen is shared so it’s clear what the focus of the discussion is.
Preparation
Let people know that the team is unavailable for that period of time, if there is a crisis, then obviously act as you need to, but try to guard your team from interruptions. Letting people know in advance will help decrease the amount of interruptions.
Ensure any documents, notes or Confluence areas are setup ready to capture feedback.
Format
There are several common formats you can try and switch between:
- Glad, Sad and Mad
Everyone adds to the board* (doesn’t have to be a physical board) what they were glad about, what made them sad and what made them mad. If your team are facing a particularly hard time, or are new to retrospectives, you may find that most of the comments start in the sad or mad area. Don’t worry, surfacing these issues needed in order to improve things. Over time you should start to see the board become more even. - The 4 Ls.
Liked, Lacked, Longed for and Learned. Split the board* into 4 different categories, ask the team to add what they liked about the sprint, what they lacked, what they longed for and what they learned. - What went well
Take time to list what went well during the sprint, what didn’t go so well and any actions that need to be taken along with any new ideas. - Starfish
Start, Stop, Less, More, Keep — 5 different areas for the team to add what they want to start doing, stop doing, do less off , do more off and what they want to keep doing.
Running the Retrospective
Make sure everyone gets a fair say, consult the team to get a wider opinion on things, and encourage new ideas. Don’t worry if all the answers aren’t apparent, sometimes you need to trial things to see if they work. As a team you can agree what is acceptable, and how you’ll decide if it’s effective.
Change the format every now and then as retrospectives can quickly become stale if you stick to the same agenda every time.
