It is important to note that there is no place for the blame game. The project team identifies what skills or knowledge helped, what kind of motivation prevailed if a particular team member provided the best help or insight to the process.

What went well during the last sprint cycle and how the good parts can be replicated in the future. Let’s look into Agile retrospectives’ discussion topics in more detail: It is the time to generate insights, gather data, remember past events, create a positive change, and come up with creative ideas. The sprint retrospective is one of the significant events in the Scrum project management framework. What is discussed in sprint retrospectives? There are lots of sprint retrospective examples online that you can browse for inspiration and experiments. It is best to let the core team decide what kind of format and phrasing works best for them. Basically, each team member shares their opinion on: The 3 important questions of the meeting are:Įvery retrospective meeting is slightly different but the common exercise that teams do is going one by one, each person responding to those 3 questions, followed by a group discussion of each point.Īn alternative take on the 3 core questions is the start-stop-continue format. The sprint retrospective is all about gathering data: what happened, what did you see, what can we learn. Instead, they should participate in the sprint review. The sprint retrospective is a team-focused meeting, so stakeholders are discouraged from attending. The meeting resembles a guided discussion, rather than a formal agenda-based session. Yet, he doesn’t necessarily run a sprint retrospective. Scrum Master acts as a neutral third party facilitates discussions, makes sure the teams follow the Scrum principles and guides them whenever necessary. Everyone is equal and everyone’s input is valuable. The development team is synonymous with the Scrum team or Agile team, and it includes anyone who is involved in the creation of the product increment.Įvery member of the team needs to attend because they each work on various tasks and have a different perspective. Sprint retrospectives are attended by the product owner, the development team, and Scrum Master. In-person teams should avoid prolonging the ceremony beyond standard length. If part of the team is remote, it is also recommended to reserve more time for the meeting. If the team is new, they might need more time to figure out certain subjects and nuances. How well aware of all processes and sprint steps Scrum team members are.Discussions with more people take proportionally more time, although the methodology’s best practices suggest keeping the teams under 9 people. The meeting is time-boxed and recommended to stay within 2 hours for a one-month sprint, or 1 hour for a two-week sprint. The sprint retrospective format and purpose In a retrospective meeting, the team looks back at the sprint and identifies ways to improve the next sprint. Please note that sprint review and sprint retrospective are not the same! During the sprint review, the team presents and discusses the results of the sprint – the product increment that they produced. It should always occur after the sprint review and before the next sprint planning meeting. That’s when it is the best time to act on them. The timing of the meeting is crucial because, by the time the sprint is ending, ideas and thoughts are still fresh and at the top of the team’s mind. Sprint retrospectives happen on the last day of the sprint with the main goal of reviewing the sprint, discussing various aspects of the process that was implemented, and preparing for the next sprint. What is a sprint retrospective?Ĭontinuous improvement is in Scrum methodology’s DNA, and sprint retrospective meetings are one of the key facilitators of the improvement and learning. Last time we covered sprint review, so if you’d like to learn about it too, read our recent blog post. We will look into the meetings’ format, purpose, and its’ part in the Scrum framework in general. As we continue talking about the 5 meetings of Scrum, today is the time to discuss the sprint retrospective meeting held at the very end of the sprint.

Agile retrospective ideas