6 Tips For a Better Scrum Retrospective

Improve your next retrospective! Our downloadable retrospective tip sheet will help you prepare better for your retrospectives and get better outcomes.

I recently hosted a client workshop on how to improve the retrospective event in the Scrum Framework. Rather than focus on specific techniques (like I did in this related post), I focused on overall planning and preparation in advance of the retrospective.

I summarized my retrospective recommendations down to the following 6 tips. The first tip is the most important of those tips.

Tip #1 — Plan the Retrospective Ahead

Something that I always found helpful was to layout a plan for the retrospective. This included how I was going to move through the stages of the retrospective, how I would use my time, and the specific exercises I would use at each step.

Without a plan, you tend to wing it. I’ve seen Scrum Masters show up for a retrospective at the last minute and just dive in. They didn’t have a plan and they wound up not having any…