The goal of retrospectives is help teams to continuously improve their way of working.
Ben Linders, Getting Value out of Agile Retrospectives – A Toolbox of Retrospective Exercises
One of the best descriptions you can find of the purpose of the retrospective. In essence, retrospective helps teams to identify the points that need to be strengthened, but above all, it helps teams to think together about a solution to the problem, creating integration and promoting collective reasoning.
The retrospective meetings work according to the dynamics of each team, however, there are some points to consider that could help improve team productivity.
Here are some points to consider about retrospectives that you may find useful.
Have retrospective meetings 😬
Although it sounds very logical, teams sometimes don’t have retrospective meetings because they feel too stressed by the delivery of the project and fall into the terrible mistake of thinking what could “take up their time”.
It is advisable to schedule retrospective meetings that can be met by the team. Not overloading the agenda is key so that meetings are longed for instead of discarded.
Having meetings rarely 🙄
Don’t be fooled! It may not seem like that, but having meetings very occasionally can be very harmful, it makes the team lose interest because they do not see the event as something serious.
If you started with the meetings, keep it consistent so that the team is part of it in the same way.
Involve the whole team 🤝
All team members must participate in the meetings so that together they can evaluate the aspects to improve and design solutions that everyone agrees on.
Don’t just include managers and elected members, make sure everyone is present.
Always mention the positive things 💪
Start by always mentioning the positives, not mentioning them could ruin the team’s excitement for the meeting. It seeks to turn good things into good practices.
Only after mentioning the positive things, give way to talk about the aspects to improve.
Follow up on previous meetings 🤓
A good way to see the progress of the team is to follow up on the points discussed in previous meetings.
In all meetings make a checklist, record the actions taken and the results obtained, the results will generate motivation in the team.
Final words
Consider the power of retrospective meetings as a booster for the team and the organization, running them effectively and consistently could give you surprising results.
Last modified: September 30, 2022