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You’ve probably participated in a sprint retrospective, no matter if you’re new to software development or an experienced player. These agile meetings can help to highlight opportunities for change and generate meaningful process improvements. They can also help move the team in the right direction. If done poorly, a sprint review can become a blame game, or give the loudest voices a platform for complaining about the project. (Spoiler alert! This is not the way they should be).
Continue reading to learn how the sprint retrospective can be used to drive change. We’ll explain what it is and what it doesn’t. Finally, we’ll offer some tips to make the sprint retrospective as productive and efficient as possible.
How to Run a Sprint Retrospective that Actually Leads to Change
What is a Sprint Retrospective?
Why should you run a sprint retrospective?
How to Facilitate Retrospectives
3 Different Retrospective Methods
What is the difference between a Sprint Review and a Sprint Retrospective?
What are some issues you might run into?
What do teams want out of retrospectives?
6 Quick Tips To Elevate Your Next Sprint Retrospective
What is a Sprint Retrospective?
A retrospective is a way to look back at past events and situations. The Scrum Guide states that a sprint retrospective allows the Scrum Team to look back on past events and make a plan for improvement for the next Sprint. This makes sense, especially considering agile development’s focus on continuous improvement. To improve, you must know which blade to sharpen.
People should be able to give honest feedback about what is going well and what could be improved. The retrospective should also generate a discussion around what should change next time. Actionable items should also be documented. Although retrospectives can be used by any type of team that is working on a shared project or team, the sprint retrospective is optimized for agile production teams. It is a common tool that Scrum and Kanban teams use to facilitate cyclical product development.
The best thing about the retrospective is that it takes place right after a sprint ends. This means that fresh ideas are often top of mind and can be shared with the entire team. We’ll discuss how this differs from a Sprint Review later, but the important thing to remember is that continuous improvement is the key to all of it. The sprint retrospective’s purpose is to bring about positive change in the project and account, as well as the organization.
Why should you run a sprint retrospective?
If you are using agile methodologies, the sprint retrospective is likely a regular part of your daily routine. Some production teams may find routine a problem. Teams can get so used to their routines that important ceremonies such as the sprint retrospective become boring. We’ll explore some other ways to spice things up later.
Here are some benefits of running a retrospective sprint.
It provides a safe space for team members and allows them to give their valuable feedback.
It allows the team record wins and areas for improvement.
It gives you a list of next steps and identifies who owns which item.
It can identify small, incremental improvements that can lead to greater improvement.
It allows teams to iterate on the process to increase results.
It allows people to voice their opinions.
It helps the team grow.
Each sprint is better than the previous.
How to Facilitate Retrospectives
Think back to the last time you attended a meeting. What was it that made it so special?