#Supercharge your Sprint Retrospective for Better Engagement and Outcome
The purpose of Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness. ~ The Scrum Guide 2020
Sprint Retrospective is one of the most important event in Scrum Framework, because the purpose is to increase quality and effectiveness. Unfortunately Retrospective sometimes being underestimated by Scrum Team because it’s not too related to work / deliverables and therefore they skipped it.
WHY? One of the reason why Retrospective is being underestimated probably because team are doing it in same format repetitively.
WHAT? Team getting bored & the result are most-likely same & repeating in every Sprint Retrospective.
HOW can we solve this issue? We should make Sprint Retrospective interesting & valuable for Scrum Team. Let’s Spice Up your Sprint Retrospective! Here’s how you can do / try :
Start with Icebreaking / Check-in
Always open the Retrospective with Icebreaking / check-in activity to warm up the participants. Below are the examples :
Each participants will put sticky note with their names on the emoji / weather that represent what they feel for this Sprint.
Objective : Sanity check on team morale
Based on what happened during Sprint, find which scenarios that suits for your Retrospective. Below are example of the scenarios :
Team don’t know the issue
If your team don’t know the issue, you want to find issue that blocking or slowing down in Sprint. You can try using the common retrospective methods like :
- What went well, What didn’t go well, What need to be improved
- Sad, Mad, Glad
- Start, Stop, Continue
- Liked, Learned, Lacked
You can also use thematic / analogy to make it more fun (Speedboat, Speedcar, Hot Air Baloon) :
Objective : Find issue that blocking or slowing down during the Sprint and propose action plan for next Sprint.
Team have already identified the issue
If the team already identified the issue during Sprint, you can try to use these 2 methods :
- 5 Whys — Start with your issue / problem statement and keep asking Why 5 times until you & your team find the root cause.
- 1–2–4-ALL from Liberating Structure. Below are the steps :
Objective : Deep dive on the specific issue and collectively brainstorm to find root cause & propsed solution.
Team are having too many issues
When your team having to many issues during Sprint, the most important thing to do is Prioritize it and then start working on the highest priority. You can use Lean Coffee method to help prioritize your issues :
- Team member can propose the issue that they think is the most important & pitch it to everyone.
- All team member will vote using dot vote (2–3 dots per person).
- Order the issue based on the highest to lowest vote (Prioritize).
- Discuss 1–2 highest vote issue with your team and propose a solution / improvement for next Sprint.
Other simpler method that you can also try is using Eisenhower Matrix :
Objective : Prioritize the issue & choose the highest one (or two) to be discussed on solution / improvement for next Sprint.
Get to know each other
You can also use Retrospective the get to know each team member. You can use this method if you think the issue that happened during Sprint is because team engagement & collaboration is low.
You can try use some games / quiz or ask each other to share their hobbies and interest over a cup of coffee and slice of pizza :)
Objective : Get to know better your team member for better collaboration and engagement
Appreciate & Recognize Team Member
Recognition helps employees see that their company values them and their contributions to the success of their team and the company overall. That is why Recognition is very important to boost team member spirit to contribute even better to them team.
You can use some kind of “Award” for your team, such as Best Performer, Best Bug Hunter, Best Innovator, etc. You can also use more fun award such as Happiest Person, Funniest Person, etc. Giving them a symbolic prize would be a good idea as well.
Or you can also use this opportunity to say thanks to your team member for their contribution & hard work :
Objective : Appreciation & Recognition for better team Engagement
Team just want to have FUN!
If your team has just been on major release that can be stressful for them, probably it’s a good idea to celebrate the milestone with them & have fun!
You can play some fun games with them, for example Jenga with a Twist, Spin the Wheel, Answer random questions, etc :
And don’t forget the drinks & the Pizza :)
Objective : Loose the tension, celebrate & have a good laugh with your team
Action Plan for next Sprint & Closing
The objective of Sprint Retrospective is to increase quality & effectiveness through continuous improvement. That is why you need to ensure there will be an action plan to improve for next Sprint before you close the Sprint Retrospective :
Sprint Retrospective Agenda
For better visibility to your team, you can also try to create a Sprint Retrospective Agenda, here is one great example from sketchingscrummaster which visually show the Retrospective agenda :
Closure
Those are Sprint Retrospective methods that I’ve tried with different Scrum Teams through my experience as Scrum Master and Agile Coach. The key is to assess and observe what happened during the Sprint to define which scenario will be used on the Retrospective that can accommodate their needs, help them solve issue & continuously improve the team.
Please share your thought, input and also your experience running Sprint Retrospective on comment section below, let’s discuss. Cheers!
