Conducting the Sprint Retrospective
The Sprint Retrospective is an event for the entire Scrum Team to discuss what went well, what problems were encountered and how those problems were, or were not, solved. During the meeting, the team identifies changes to the way they work to help improve their effectiveness. In order to not lose track of these suggestions, it’s good practice to make them visible by adding them to the Sprint Backlog for the next Sprint.
It’s often the case that the Scrum Master assumes responsibility for facilitating the Sprint Retrospective, but it’s certainly not required. In fact, in order to keep all members of the team engaged during Sprint Retrospectives, it’s good practice for them to take turns acting as the facilitator for this event.
A simple way to conduct the Sprint Retrospective is to:
- Set up a whiteboard with three sections:
- What went well?
- What didn’t go well?
- What could be improved?
- Ask each Scrum Team member to put a “sticky” note in the relevant sections
- Discuss each item
- Create a list of improvements that the team agrees should be undertaken
- Have the team order this list and pick the top 1 or 2 to work on in the next Sprint
However, there are many more creative ways to facilitate the Sprint Retrospective and we encourage team members to learn some of these techniques and to volunteer to facilitate their team’s Retrospectives.
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