Need some suggestions to establish a flow during Sprint Retrospectives
Hi Fellow Scrummers - I would need some pointers on stitching the items of discussion together during the Sprint Retro. Right now, as the Scrum Master, I am struggling to figure out how to transition from the past Sprint related discussion boundary to the overall team dynamics discussions. While we start off with the last sprint goals and blockers, I am finding it difficult to put in the flow the questionnaires and the discussions around the responses around the "overall" sprint process for inspections and adaptations.
When is the best time to engage the team in the "overall" process discussions switching the focus away solely from just the "past" Sprint?
I don't fully understand the difference. If there was an impediment to the "overall sprint process", wouldn't that come up when reflecting on the past Sprint? You can also look at things brought up in the past few retrospectives to see if there are common themes - perhaps some things weren't addressed because they were lower priority and there's only so much time, but letting things sit for multiple sprints may be something that is worthy of fixing.
When is the best time to engage the team in the "overall" process discussions switching the focus away solely from just the "past" Sprint?
As soon as a Scrum Team member (including yourself) reckons that a historical pattern has emerged, and that it ought to be brought to the attention of his or her peers. That might be during a Sprint Retrospective or it might not. Inspection and adaptation can occur at any point during a Sprint and it should be as timely as possible.
Thomas and Ian - many thanks! Reviewing past retro items have been very useful (in one instance, there was a suggestion of a short daily connect to triage bugs - however, once implemented, was cut off in the next retro by the team because the team felt it was not necessary and the situation changed as the volume of bugs reduced)
During the Sprint Retro (we are time-boxing it for 2 hours and our sprints are 2 weeks long), is there any engaging way to channelize the discussions from the past sprint boundaries to the "assessments" and "reflection" sections. For example, if I would like to present a list of questions pertaining to how effectively the scrum values were applied in general and anonymously allow the team to put them in a box and consolidate and present the findings, should it be scoped in the Retro?
For example, if in the Agenda, I lay out the "past-sprint" specific discussions in one section and "Maturity Litmus" in the other section with a break of 10 mins in between to allow for the transition and allow for the results consolidation, would it be more useful over starting with the Questionnaire first?
My basic dilemma is should I incorporate team-coaching elements in the Retro or not? If not, I cannot think of any other event, like a 30-min connect specifically for coaching (context switching being detrimental). Any thought?