Why do you need to have a Sprint Retrospective? Who should attend? What's the point of it?

"At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjust its behavior accordingly." What does this mean and why is it important?

During the Sprint Retrospective the Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went with regards to individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and their Definition of Done.

Teams are more effective when they learn HOW to learn. They focus on small and actionable improvements and make sure to follow up on them until they are completed, before moving on to the next.

In this vlog, Professional Scrum Trainers, Andreanna Marshall, and Scott Adams discuss five common Scrum mistakes that will ruin your team's progress.

How can savvy Scrum Masters and Scrum Teams use the Retrospective Prime Directive to avoid Retrospective Witch Hunts but instead create a culture of continuous collaboration and learning?

Empiricism is one of the underlying concepts of the Scrum framework. Scrum is founded on empirical process control, and transparency is the first of the three pillars. How does this show during Sprint Retrospective?

A scenario showing how the scrum framework and metrics can help a team self manage for improvement.

Every Scrum event has a maximum allowable time period to carry it out, called a timebox.  While Scrum events have a maximum amount of time, they do not have a minimum amount of time. Let’s look at all of the event timeboxes and how they make Scrum Teams more effective.

Three simple Retrospective formats based on the Liberating Structures “Conversation Cafe”, “Troika Consulting”, and “Discovery & Action Dialogue”.

In this Introduction to Facilitating the Sprint Retrospective video, you'll learn step-by-step how to guide your team through a Sprint Retrospective with techniques such as the Prime Directive, the Perfection Game, Dot Voting and Affinity Mapping so that your team can leave the Sprint Retrospective with ideas on how to improve. (7:55 Minutes)

​​​​​​​According to the 2020 Scrum Guide, “The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness.”  Scrum Teams must take the Retrospective seriously to achieve these outcomes.  In this article, we will look at four tips for getting the most from your Sprint Retrospective and provide several agenda ideas that you can use to keep this event fresh.

Done is a fundamental part of bringing transparency. How does this relate to Sprint Retrospective? Check it out! Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (70)

What is your take on the Retrospective: A routine exercise at the end of a Sprint, supported by standard operating procedures? Or a critical part of a Scrum team’s journey of continuous improvement?

As a minimalist framework, Scrum contains only what is needed. Every piece of the Scrum framework is there for a reason. When teams modify any part, they won’t get the full benefits of Scrum. In this article, we will discuss three of the worst Scrum “customizations.” Warning: don’t try these in your organization!

A cross-functional team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How does this relate to the Sprint Retrospective? Check it out! - Back to the foundations of the Scrum framework (59)

In this vlog, PST Joshua Partogi explains the flow of an effective Sprint Retrospectives with Kanban metrics.

Learn how individual incentives and outdated organizational structures — fostering personal agendas and local optimization efforts — manifest themselves in Scrum stakeholder anti-patterns that easily impede any agile transformation to a product-led organization.

There are five events in Scrum.  But just going through the motions and having each of the events on the calendar is not enough.  To get the most out of Scrum, your team needs to understand the purpose behind each of the five events.  

One of the primary purposes of a retrospective is to create action items, but it’s not uncommon to come up with action items that aren’t actionable.  They’re aspirational.  This blog gives you some ways to ensure your retrospectives have actionable items.

Three simple retrospective formats based on the Liberating Structures "Conversation Cafe", "Troika Consulting", and "Discovery & Action Dialogue"

Some time ago, whilst discussing this topic with my fellow Professional Scrum.org Trainer Todd Miller, he shared his experience with using White Elephant principles to enable a participative facilitation environment (thanks Todd!). It inspired me to use it and write this blog. 

Powerful Product Owner. It sounds like a threat, isn’t it?  Anyone overpowering affects the whole team’s activity and outcome. No wonder this affects retrospectives as well. 

Why many Scrum teams struggle with continuous improvement, and how you can do better

A self-managing team is a fundamental part of effectivity. How can this happen during your Sprint Retrospective? Check it out!

Scrum Values make the use of Scrum successful. How can you and your Team live these values during the Sprint Review? Check it out!

How does your Sprint Retrospective support adaptation in order to minimise deviations from agreed goals? Each of the Scrum Events serves to adapt. So does the Sprint Retrospective. Check it out!

In a recent episode of Your Daily Scrum, Professional Scrum Trainers Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley teach you the Scrum Framework in 7 minutes!

In today's vlog I would like to come back to the fundamentals of Scrum ... Done Increment.

A Scrum Event is a meeting. So why don't we just call it that? Why create a new word? Given the poor reputation that meetings have, maybe it's not a surprise. Rather than replicate the name and pain of meetings, the Scrum Events are designed to replace them and be all that you need. The power of the Scrum Events is in the way they're time-boxed and in their purpose. Let's take a closer look.

This workshop was delivered on 16th September 2021 and focused on introducing the core concepts of the Sprint Review and its empirical nature.

According to the 15th annual State of Agile report, there has been a tremendous increase in the adoption of agile frameworks over the last year. Within software teams, agile adoption grew from 37% in 2020 to 86% in 2021.

This workshop was delivered on 5th August 2021 and focused on highlighting the value of people in the product delivery world and some of the things that need to change.

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone.

When using the Scrum framework, the Retrospective is the final event in a Sprint. In this article, we will discuss ideas to use when planning your next Sprint Retrospective.

In this episode of Ask a Professional Scrum Trainer, Professional Scrum Trainer Punit Doshi answers audience questions about New Scrum Masters, metrics, Sprint Retrospectives, Sprint Planning and more!

We’ve already discussed the importance of decentralised command and decision-making in an earlier blog, outlining how managers need to be able to train, mentor and teach their teams.

Complaining is like releasing gas. It’s a natural occurrence. Everyone does it. But no one wants someone else to do it next to them. How to complain less and do more by Sahin Guvenilir.

Join me and explore the reasons and the consequences of this Sprint Retrospective anti-pattern in 83 seconds...

In their book Agile Retrospectives, Esther Derby and Diana Larsen popularized the idea that a Sprint Retrospect comprises five stages. The second stage refers to gathering data so that the Scrum Team can have data-informed Retrospectives.

On today’s episode of YOUR DAILY SCRUM: Can the Scrum Team skip their Sprint Retrospective?

I sat, as an observing consultant, in my third Retrospective of the day. I noticed high energy and openness as the room's buzz showed me signs that this team was genuinely collaborative...

This blog post describes some lessons that I learned from facilitating a retrospective in a real prison for a group of my cellmates, political prisoners.

Sprint Retrospective is the last Scrum event within a Sprint. During this event entire Scrum Team- Scrum Master, Product Owner & Development Team inspects the Sprint and decides how to improve the next Sprint.

Scrum is defined completely in the Scrum Guide by Ken Schwaber and Jeff Sutherland, the originators of Scrum.  The Scrum Guide is maintained independently of any company or vendor and therefore lives on a brand neutral site.  The Scrum Guide is translated and available in over 30 languages.

Ideas on how to use Powerful Questions virtually and help teams find their own solutions to persistent problems.

As per Scrum Guide – The Sprint Goal is an objective that will be met within the sprint by implementing the Product Backlog, and it guides the Development Team on why it is building the Increment.

An attendee of a course I delivered recently reached out to me post course to ask a question. [This is something that I always encourage, with new knowledge often comes new questions]

Facing a large number of risks while delivering products seems to be normal. And, it is. It is common and natural. What we need to do, is manage the risk.

We often try to make massive change once we realize something isn't right and this doesn't normally go so well. When it comes to making progress everyone wants to LEAP; take BIGGER steps.