Retrospectives are an essential part of the agile development process. They provide teams with a valuable opportunity to reflect on their progress, identify areas for improvement, and remove blockers to productivity. However, too often these retrospectives can feel like a box-ticking exercise, rather than a meaningful process that drives real change. A meaningful retrospective engages everyone in the team, outputs effective action items, that will actually be implemented, and enables people to do their best work. This blog post presents some theory and tips to help you conduct meaningful retrospectives instead of regrettospectives!
Table of Contents
- Culture Prerequisites
- Retro Agenda Reasoning
- Retrospective Antipatterns
- Participation and Focus
- Meaningful Outcomes
- Summary
Culture Prerequisites
To conduct successful retrospectives, certain cultural prerequisites must be present within the team. Most of them have a lot of synergies with each other so establishing one will help you establishing the others more easily. They also go hand in hand with the reasoning behind the different retro agenda items (see Retro Agenda). In the end, the goal is always the same: To conduct a retro that is worth the time and effort that goes into it. To achieve this, these five key prerequisites should be established.
Prime Directive
The prime directive states:
“We must believe that everyone did the best job they could, given the information known at the time, their skills and situation and resources available.”
It’s the foundational prerequisite for a successful agile retrospective. Believing in this directive means that the team understands that everyone has different skills, knowledge, and resources, and that no one is perfect. The team should focus on identifying causes and circumstances that led to mistakes, rather than blaming individuals. This leads to a trust culture where people feel free to share their opinions openly and transparently remove blockers to progress.
Psychological Safety
Adding on to the prime directive in a more general sense, psychological safety refers to a team culture where team members feel free to share positive and negative feedback without fear of retribution for mistakes or criticism. This creates a safe space where everyone is encouraged to express their thoughts, which ultimately leads to more creative and innovative solutions. Teams should recognize that it is okay to fail, because it provides an opportunity for learning. If psychological safety is not established, people will not share their real opinions or mistakes, so no significant improvement can be made. The retrospective would become a meaningless chore.
One important aspect of psychological safety is the presence of managers in the retro. The presence of a manager can improve the outcome of the retro because they have unique insights and capabilities to drive change, but it can also be a blocker to psychological safety because people are afraid to admit to mistakes in front of their boss. Consider on an individual basis whether a manager’s presence in the retro is beneficial or detrimental and don’t be afraid to conduct a retrospective without them.
Open to Discussing Causes
Teams should avoid jumping to solutions immediately and instead take the time to deep dive and understand the root causes of problems. By taking a systematic approach and spending enough time to generate insights, teams can identify the underlying issues that are contributing to a problem. This helps the team to create action items that address the root cause of the problem instead of just the symptoms, which often leads to a more effective and sustainable solution. Of course, this can only be achieved if the teams takes sufficient time to conduct the retro. When the timeline is too tight, it is more likely that cause discussion will be skipped.
Optimism
The team has to believe in the retro and its ability to drive continuous improvement and learning. People who believe in the purpose of the retro are going to participate more actively, which creates more opportunities to improve. Also, teams should not forget to talk about the positives and recognize the good work that has been done. Many retros often only take the time to talk about negative aspects and how to improve and while that is important, it can also become frustrating and create a negative atmosphere. Taking time to talk about the positives and how to leverage the teams strenghts creates an environment that fosters optimism and a desire for progress, making your retro more fun as well as improving the outcome.
Dedication
The team must be dedicated to the retrospective process. Teams should take sufficient time to conduct the retrospective and actively participate in the process in order to make the most out of every agenda item (see section below). Additionally, team members should be dedicated to implementing the action items that are identified during the retrospective. Explaning the reasoning behind the different agenda items and addressing the other culture prerequisites can drastically improve dedication.
Finally, teams should revisit past action items periodically to remind themselves of their commitment and see the progress that has already been made. Explicitly stating what has been improved by past retrospectives is motivating and makes the retrospective more meaningful, instead of it feeling like an obligatory ceremony to get through.
Retro Agenda
The success of a retrospective largely depends on how it is conducted. The typical retrospective agenda consists of five key items: set the stage, gather data, generate insights, decide what to do, and close the retro. In this blog post, we will explore the reasoning behind each agenda item, why it is important, and the potential consequences of skipping it.
Set the Stage
The first item on the agenda is setting the stage. This involves an icebreaker or reflection exercise, reviewing past action items, presenting the retro format and theme, and setting the time frame and agenda. The ice breaker question is usually positive and non-controversial (e.g. “What was your favorite lunch this week?”), which creates an optimistic mood for the retrospective and makes it easier for everyone to participate. By including everyone from the beginning, it becomes more likely that they will share later. Additionally, the facilitator can use this item to align the retro with the team’s goals. In an online retrospective, this is a good moment to encourage people to turn on the camera so they will feel more connected.
Skipping this item can cause the retro to fail. When team members are not given the opportunity to warm up and connect, they may not feel comfortable sharing their thoughts and opinions later on. It is also essential to establish a clear agenda and time frame to ensure that the retro remains focused and productive.
Gather Data
In “Gather Data”, the team talks about what happened in the sprint, whether good or bad, and gathers as many data items as possible. It is important to talk about experiences during the sprint in a factual way, by saying “This made me feel…” or “This happened”. Resist the temptation to already suggest solutions at this stage! This way every experience and feeling is valid, which creates a sharing atmosphere where everyone’s voice is heard. This is the agenda item people usually see as the core of the retrospective. While it is actually just the basis for generating insights, it is still crucial. Without a basis for the retro, there is nothing to reflect on or improve. Gathering lots of data allows the team to identify areas for improvement and work towards addressing them.
Generate Insights
The real star of the retrospective is generating insights, which means going into cause analysis and deep discussion about a few data items. This agenda item is important to understand how systems and processes affect the team and which areas the team has control over, in order to create effective actions. The facilitator should keep the discussion focused on causes, not solutions (yet), and take sufficient time to get everyone’s perspective. Also remember to discuss the root causes of positive data items in order to further leverage the team’s strengths.
Skipping this item can cause the retro to become unproductive. Without a deep understanding of the causes of issues, the team may end up focusing on symptoms rather than root causes. This can lead to ineffective action items, frustration and the feeling that nothing is improving (see Wheel of Fortune).
Decide What to Do
Now the time for solutions has finally come! In this step, the team suggests action items to address the causes identified in “Generate Insights”, focusing on things the team can control. Pick 1-3 action items to implement in the next sprint. Even if more good action items have been suggested, avoid overwhelming the team with too many actions or they might not get implemented. Effective actions enable the team to do their best, remove blockers and create positive feelings of improvement.
The facilitator should keep track of action items for future reference to ensure that they are implemented. This way, the team can also see their progress which can be a great motivation.
Closing the Retro
The final item on the agenda is closing the retro. This is often skipped to save time, but it has a lot of benefits. The facilitator can link the action items identified in the previous step back to data and insights, increasing motivation for the team to implement them. To make implementation even more likely, state who is responsible for implementing which action, get explicit commitment for the team and mention when action items will be re-evaluated. A closing activity can also provide feedback to facilitator and help improve the retro.
Skipping this item can lead to a lack of motivation to implement action items or improve in the future, so consider taking the time to close the retro properly.
Time Considerations
Now that you know the reasoning behind every agenda item and why it shouldn’t be skipped, it is clear that the team must allocate a sufficient amount of time to conduct the retro. Cutting discussions too short or skipping agenda items can lead to ineffective retros, while investing just a bit more time can improve the outcome drastically. When scheduling the retro, keep the size of the team and the length of the sprint in mind. Of course, you won’t be able to discuss all data items but there should be enough time to do a cause analysis of the most important ones and to have everyone share their thoughts. If you feel like your team’s retros are ineffective, few team members get the chance to participate in discussions or you find yourself frequently skipping agenda items, definitely consider making the next retro longer to get the most benefit out of every agenda item. If on the other hand you’re going through all agenda items in record time due to lack of active participation, check your culture prerequisites and try to find out why people don’t want to share their perspectives.
Antipatterns
Falling into retrospective antipatterns can severely affect the effectiveness of the retrospective process. These antipatterns occur when certain aspects of the process are ignored or not given adequate attention, which leads to a lack of engagement and meaningful improvement. In this post, we will examine some of the most common antipatterns and discuss ways to avoid them.
Prime Directive Ignorance
When team members start blaming individuals instead of circumstances, it creates a hostile blame culture, which is detrimental to the team’s productivity and will cause people not to share their perspective in the retro. This would render the retro meaningless. Everyone on the team should keep the prime directive in mind and make a conscious effort to understand peoples skills, situation and resources instead of judging them for mistakes.
Lack of Trust
When team members don’t trust each other or don’t feel psychologically safe, they are not willing to share their opinions and ideas. This leads to important issues not being discussed, and the retrospective becoming a superficial chore. If you feel like there is a lack of trust in the team, focus on building relationships between participants before any retro is conducted. Also consider only inviting core team members to the retrospective, since their relationships are usually the strongest.
Disillusioned Facilitator
A retrospective cannot be successful if the facilitator doesn’t believe in the retrospective process or isn’t motivated to lead the retro. When this happens, participants won’t believe in it either, which leads to lack of sharing and unfocused discussions. Always choose a facilitator who is motivated to lead the retrospective and give them enough time to prepare.
The facilitator might also be scared of judgement if they feel like they are the only one who believe in the retro. Make sure the team understands the importance of the retrospective and the reasoning behind the agenda items and activities.
In the Soup
Being stuck “in the soup” means that the team spends lots of time discussing things they cannot control and comes up with action points for someone outside of the team to implement. These actions are unlikely to ever be implemented and the same issues will crop up repeatedly in the retro. This leads to the team getting frustrated with the lack of results and no meaningful improvement. To avoid this, the facilitator can make the amount of control explicit with a retrospective activity and focus the discussion on things that are within the team’s scope.
Negative Team
When the team is always focused on the negatives, they get depressed about small things, lose faith in the retrospective, and become demotivated. To make the retro more positive, the facilitator can include positive data items in the discussion or use positive ice breakers. If the negativity is overwhelming, conducting a positivity retro can help to break the cycle.
Wheel of Fortune
It is common for teams trying to save time by skipping cause analysis in the retro. Jumping directly from data to solutions is tempting, but generating actions based on symptoms instead of root causes can lead to ineffective actions or even make the problems worse.
Here’s an example: Imagine the team has identified lack of pair programming as a problem so they decide to schedule pair programming sessions explicitly. This might work if the cause is that people get lost in daily work and forget to invite team members to pair programm. But if the cause is a lack of trust between team members, setting up sessions explicitly might even make things worse by wasting time and frustrating the team. Instead a more effective action would address the lack of trust, for example by hosting a team event to strengthen relationships.
Unfruitful Democracy
Democracy seems to be the fairest and easiest way to make decisions during the retro. Which items should we discuss? The ones which the most team members are interested in. Which actions should we commit to? The ones which the most team members want to implement. Quick, effective and fair, right? Not always.
There are some downsides to democracy that you should consider. One team member might have a very strong opinion on an action item. Even if they are outvoted by democracy, they won’t be committed to implementing the action item and in the worst case they might even try to actively sabotage it make sure it’s not implemented. If this happens, not only is the time trying to implement the action wasted, it also creates distrust in team. In other cases, a minority of team members might be more affected by a certain action than others, but the majority are the ones driving the decision which can lead to ineffective actions and frustration for those who are most affected. Especially when deciding which topics to discuss, if you always go by majority vote, the problems of the minority stay unaddressed which means obstacles to their productivity are not removed, causing low output and demotivation.
Other options for decision making are:
- Dictatorship: One person decides. This could be the facilitator, the manager or a particularly affected team member.
- Consensus: Everyone has to agree.
- Consent: The majority decides, but the decision is only valid if the other team members consent to the decision.
Evaluate the best way to make a decision based on the situation and make sure to get feedback and commitment from everyone before finalizing a decision.
Disregard for Preparation
A successful retrospective requires preparation, such as preparing a proper agenda, theme and activities. But it also means sending access to any tools needed beforehand and reminding people of the retrospective and any camera policies. If preparation is disregarded, people often show up late, lose valuable time on solving technical issues and are not ready to turn on their camera during the ice breaker. Having no clear agenda and activities leads to the retro being unfocused and often not returning meaningful results.
The facilitator should be given enough time to prepare the retro properly and send out the necessary reminders. Participants on the other hand should know about the importance of the retro and be committed to showing up on time and testing their tool access and audio setup beforehand.
Participation and Focus
Many teams struggle with lack of participation and focus during the retrospective. Often, it’s the same people who are sharing and you’re just not getting everyone’s input. There can be many different reasons for this and while it’s easy to blame the participants and accuse them of being unmotivated, the truth is that a typical retrospective naturally favors certain personality types and thinking patterns, which not everyone has. That’s no one’s fault but as a facilitator it is your responsibility to conduct a retro that is inclusive and makes it easy to gather everyone’s perspective, which leads to more meaningful outcomes and makes it more likely for action items to be implemented. Another way to increase participation is making the retrospective more interesting and avoiding distractions. Here are some things you can do to achieve inclusive, engaging and productive retrospectives.
Ice Breaker
An ice breaker at the beginning of the retro is a magnificent way to increase participation later on. Since ice breakers are positive and non-controversial, they can help people relax and feel more comfortable participating. Everyone gets the opportunity to share something, and there is no wrong answer. It’s also a good opportunity to turn on the camera and connect with your team. If people feel positive and connected, they are much more likely to share their thoughts during the actual retro.
Being Inclusive
People are different, this is a fact of life. At the same time it is natural for humans to project ourselves onto others, and judge other people more harshly for their perceived shortcomings than we judge ourselves: “If this activity is fun for me, it must be fun for you too, right?” - “This person not participating means they are lazy, but when I’m not participating, it’s for a good reason, because I’m distracted by personal problems, I have construction noise in my home or I’m not getting an opportunity to share because other’s always jump in first and I don’t want to interrupt” - “This is the way we always do retros and you have to find a way to make your voice heard.”
Especially the last one is a fallacy, because it’s your goal as the facilitator to gather everyone’s perspective, so you should enable and encourage them to share. Blaming and judging a retro participant won’t make it easier for them to participate and it won’t make your retros better. The sooner you accept that people are naturally different, the sooner you can adapt your retrospectives to be more inclusive and get everyone’s input instead of forcing people to adhere to your personal style in order to participate properly. This will make your retro results more meaningful and sustainable.
A good example of an inherent trait which affects participation in retros is “Active Thinking vs. Reflective Thinking”. Active thinkers start talking quickly and think while they talk, whereas reflective thinks prefer to gather and order their thoughts before they start talking. Both approaches are equally valid, but asking an open question in a retrospective discussion naturally favors active thinkers to speak first and due to time constraints you are much less likely to hear a reflective thinker’s perspective. There are many ways to make your retrospective more inclusive towards both thinking patterns, such as explicit thinking time or think-pair-share activities.
Another difference in thinking patterns is “Global Thinking vs. Sequential Thinking”. Global thinkers prefer open prompts such as “What can we improve in the next sprint?”, while sequential thinkers do better with specific prompts such as “How can we improve our code quality during the next sprint?”. Keep this in mind when designing your activities, mix up different kind of prompts to make it more likely that everyone will share.
In retrospectives, different types of topics can come up, including how people feel in the team setting and if they are properly enabled to do their work. Some people have a hard time talking about feelings, perhaps due to their upbringing, personality or experiences. Metaphoric activities and reframing questions can help create distance and make it easier for everyone to share, for example instead of asking “How did you feel during the last sprint?”, the question could be reframed as “Describe the last sprint as a weather forecast.”
Retrospectives often involve open discussions with the whole team. Some people might be more comfortable than others sharing in a large group, again there can be a multitude of reasons for this. Always conducting retros that naturally favor extroverted team members will make you miss out on other team member’s thoughts and ideas. To level the playing field you can, for example, incorporate think-pair-share or round-robin style discussions in your retros.
There are many more examples of personality traits, thinking patterns or learned behavior that affect how people act in a retrospective. It is important to open your mind towards other perspectives and experiences and incorporate different types of activities, making it easier for people to participate. This will drastically improve your retrospectives and create more meaningful outcomes.
Time to Think
This is an easy way to be inclusive towards active as well as reflective thinkers. When asking a question where you expect an open discussion, give people explicit time to think before the discussion starts. For example, you could say, “Here’s the question, think about this for 1 minute, then we’ll discuss.”.
Think-Pair-Share
Think-pair-share is a great way to include active thinkers, reflective thinkers, introverted and extroverted people in the discussion. You can use this discussion type at any stage of the retrospective. It makes it easier for people to share and gives everyone a chance to give their input. Of course it can require more time than a simple open discussion but this just underlines how important it is to allocate a sufficient amount of time to conduct the retro.
Follow Up Exercises
When people are done early on timed exercises, they might get distracted. Giving explicit follow-up activities (beforehand!) for people who are done early can help keep everyone engaged. For example, you could ask people to add +1’s to other thoughts or identify groups of similar inputs.
Interactive Tools and Themes
Using interactive tools and themes can also increase participation and make retrospectives more fun. Mural, Mentimeter, and Conceptboard are excellent examples of interactive and flexible tools that teams can use. Sometimes retrospective templates are available, which can help guide the conversation. Conducting a themed retro (e.g., all about Code Quality, Testing, Communication with other teams, etc.) can also be a fun way to switch things up. Avoid using the exact same activities in every retrospective as it can quickly become repetitive and robs you of opportunities to be more inclusive by trying different types of activities.
Breaks
Finally, when the retrospective is long, taking frequent breaks can help increase focus. Encourage your team to step away from their computer screens and take a quick break before coming back to the retrospective, refreshed and ready to participate.
Meaningful Outcomes
Retrospectives without meaningful outcomes can quickly become a frustrating experience. The action items generated during retrospectives must be relevant and the team must be motivated to implement them; otherwise, they won’t make a significant impact. Here are some tips for making the outcomes of your retrospective more meaningful.
Control
One crucial aspect to consider is the amount of control you have over a topic. Focus on things your team can control, instead of trying to change others. Action items for others are rarely implemented, which can create feelings of helplessness. By focusing on what you can control, you’ll be more empowered and more likely to drive real change.
Commitment
Commit to only 1-3 actions for the next sprint. Retrospective actions naturally have a lower priority than core business work, so it’s essential not to become overwhelmed with too many actions. It can also help to periodically remind the team of committed actions during the sprint, which again is easier when there are less of them. Avoiding frustration with too many actions will help you stay motivated and focused on your commitments.
Experiments
There can be a lot of pressure to implment an action perfectly, and while you should always aim at forming habits, try calling them “experiments” at first. Emphasize that it’s important to try your best but that it’s okay if something doesn’t work. This will help to take the pressure off and encourage more experimentation and learning, making it more likely for an action to be implemented. Additionally, establish habits by encouraging teams to repeat actions that have been successful in the past.
Follow Up
Simply conducting retrospectives isn’t enough to make meaningful progress. To truly make the most out of your retrospectives, follow up on the outcomes periodically. You should discuss why they did or didn’t work and evaluate whether the desired affect was achieved. This can help the team gain valuable insights on their strengths or obstacles that are preventing progress. It’s also motivating to see when an action was implemented successfully. Celebrating successes can increase the team’s confidence in the retro and create an optimistic environment.
Summary
Making retrospectives more meaningful is a complex task, you can work towards it using a multitude of strategies including the ones described in this post. Your goal is to gather everyone’s thoughts and ideas, which will make the actions you decide on more meaningful and more likely to be implemented. Create an environment that is inclusive of all personality types and thinking patterns and encourages everyone to share by following the prime directive, having a motivated facilitator who has sufficient time to prepare, using ice breakers, and incorporating different types of activities and discussion modes. Participation and focus can also be increased by using fun tools, taking frequent breaks or conducting themed retros. Use the typical retro agenda items to your advantage, every one of them has unique benefits which will improve your retro and its outcomes. Especially “Gathering Insights” should not be skipped, to make sure that your action items are effective. It’s important to take sufficient time to conduct the retrospective, so every agenda item can fulfill its potential and everyone has time to share their perspective. Avoid common antipatterns, for example by focusing on things your team can control, also taking time to analyze the positives, and evaluating whether democracy is always the best way to make a decision in a retro. Finally, there are some additional ways to make retrospective outcomes more meaningful, by choosing action items that are relevant and motivating. A lot of these tips have synergies with each other and by implementing these strategies, teams can create a more effective and engaging retrospective experience. So remember: Hold retrospectives, not regrettospectives!