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Should a Sprint Retrospective strictly happen after the Sprint Review?

Last post 03:51 pm October 22, 2019 by Steve Matthew
5 replies
05:48 pm October 21, 2019

While working with distributed teams (teams in different timezones), the challenge of facilitating events is a common problem, especially if you want the whole team to participate.

If the Sprint Retrospective happens immediately after the Sprint Review, the inputs from the review could add points of discussion in the retro. With distributed teams, sometimes this sequence is not possible due to the difference in timing.

In such a scenario, would it be okay to use some time from the first day of the immediate next Sprint for this event? or would it be better to have the retrospective earlier?

One may ask why not keep the Sprint Review earlier to accommodate the Sprint Retrospective? - Well, many of the stakeholders, VP's etc are not available early on in the day so, the Review tends to happen slightly later during the day. That is the last meeting the team members from other zones can attend. So, if we want a full team retrospective while respecting the Sprint timebox is to keep it before the Sprint Review or take a pragmatic view and hold it the next day i.e. the first day of the new Sprint.

What are your thoughts and how have you handled such situations?


06:07 pm October 21, 2019

I don't see anything wrong with that approach if it works best for the team. They can still use new input and learning from the Sprint Review and the Retro is happening before Sprint Planning so any action items can still be input to that. 

Sometimes circumstances require the team to be more.....agile... in their approach. 


07:22 am October 22, 2019

One may ask why not keep the Sprint Review earlier to accommodate the Sprint Retrospective? - Well, many of the stakeholders, VP's etc are not available early on in the day so, the Review tends to happen slightly later during the day.

How effectively is work being reviewed throughout the Sprint?


02:10 pm October 22, 2019

How effectively is work being reviewed throughout the Sprint?

The team and the organization is not at a level of maturity where this constant check and feedback from stakeholders can happen regularly throughout the Sprint, therefore the review happens towards the end. Since the team is distributed, it causes the Retrospective to either be done earlier than the Sprint Review or the next business day.


03:10 pm October 22, 2019

I've had teams work this way and it worked for them. They basically had it so their sprint started at noon or 1 PM instead of the start of the day. It allowed them to have their Retro the following day for the exact scenario that you describe, distributed teams across vast time zones. The day would be setup as the morning is the retro devoted to the prior/current sprint, at the end of the Retro, the sprint is over. The afternoon would kickoff with the Sprint Planning for the new sprint. Obviously, depending on the length of your events and sprint, this may not work (such as doing 1 month sprints, there are not enough hours in the day), but it is an option.

If we live by the Scrum Guide, we cannot extend the sprint, technically by waiting for the following business day to have the retro; you're extending the sprint. So a way to satisfy this issue is to have the sprint cadence begin and end in the middle of the day, rather than the beginning of the day. 

Hope this helps...


03:51 pm October 22, 2019

So a way to satisfy this issue is to have the sprint cadence begin and end in the middle of the day, rather than the beginning of the day.

@Curtis Slough, The same thought crossed my mind too, I agree with what you said. 


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