Sprint Retrospective

Sprint Retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum Team to inspect itself and create a plan for improvements to be enacted during the next Sprint.

The Sprint Retrospective occurs after the Sprint Review and prior to the next Sprint Planning.

There are multiple ways of doing retrospective.

Ask each team member

What went well during the sprint?
What would we like to change?
How can we implement that change?

OR ask

What should we start doing?
What should we stop doing?

Collecting feedback from team member is vital here so that we can continue to improve, avoid making same mistakes and take care of any risks.

The retrospective supports team formation and bonding, particularly as any areas of conflict can be identified and dealt with. The retrospective helps build the team's sense of ownership and its self-management.

Just to provide an idea, in retro meetings, below are typical points of discussions:

Compare the amount of work planned with what the development team actually completed. Review the sprint burn down chart. Go over getting support, development, and code review processes.
Discuss about the artifacts, electronic tools, communication tools, and technical tools and how well are they adding values. Do we need to change anything? What can we change to make it more better?
Discuss about team composition and alignment. Talk about communication, collaboration, and working in pairs. How can the team improve productivity?

Tips for effective Retrospective:

Review notes and actions from the previous retrospective.
Discuss problems, concerns, successes and opportunities in below 3 areas
Let each team member speak.
Vote on the most important items to take action on.
Create an action plan for your top priority items.
Explicitly allocate time for improvement actions.
Record your retrospectives & actions.