Many teams practice them with iron regularity, putting in them a lot of sleep, but the expected result still does not and does not come to pass. A common cause may be that they lack the ingredients that will cause them to have the right juice.

So here are 11 practical tips that will help take your retrospectives even further — towards mastery.

1. Accuracy is the prerogative of kings

Do you wait 15 minutes after the start for everyone to make their coffee and meet in a room? Always start on time, and do not summarize to potential stragglers what happened before their arrival. You will see that over time they will learn to walk in time so that they do not miss anything interesting. This also applies to other meetings. The facilitator should always arrive a few minutes earlier so that he has time to prepare the room and everything necessary for the smooth progress of the retrospective.

2. Extinguishing action steps

Do you generate action steps, but no one fulfills them? Even more important than doing retrospectives is the systematic work with action steps. Every retrospective must begin by reviewing the action steps from the past and talking about the state they are in. When you do this for the first time, perhaps the main topic of the retrospective will become the topic of why as a team we do not fulfill the action steps and what needs to change. This, too, is fine. A good practice to keep tasks in sight at all times is to rewrite them on the physical whiteboard in the office or make arrangements with the team and go through them at least twice a week at the end of the Daily Stand-up.

3. We do the same format all the time

People know what to expect, they come with tickets already written and you generate the same topics all the time? Try something new, offer the team a different perspective on their work, and bring something more fun than + and - as a facilitator. A good springboard is Retromat, where you can generate a random format. Or try to invent your very own format. You will see that it is nothing complicated.

4. We are always solving problems

Have you tried doing only a positive retrospective? You certainly don't do everything wrong and there are a lot of things you as a team do well and you can pat yourself on the back for them. Try for once to prohibit talking about problems and you will see the effect. We are very fond of the so-called. KUDOS when you can appreciate anyone on the team and thank them for the help or something extraordinary they accomplished in that sprint.

5. We want to solve all topics

Now that we have the work of generating themes, we feel that we cannot leave them unresolved. It is perfectly fine if, after prioritization, you discuss only one topic with the most votes, qualitatively and in depth. If other things are important, they'll show up right away at the next retrospective.

6th. The team points to everyone around

The retrospective is primarily a matter for the team, although, of course, topics that need someone else to address can also come up. But we should always start with ourselves and our team, because these are things that we have a 100% influence on and can change immediately. Once we have a tidy “at home”, we go beyond the limits of the team. A good facilitator can make teams aware of this and get them back to thinking about what they can change.

7. We must necessarily use all the time

Good news for you -- you definitely don't have to. If there is nothing to solve today or we have already discussed everything, please quit after 20 minutes. The worst thing you can do is you will constantly try to generate on the strength of other topics and try to fill the time. Take advantage of it, for example, by having a coffee or a walk in the fresh air as a team - there will definitely be more value in this. But if this situation is repeated for the third time, it's time to try a different format, because already the team could fall into the stereotype and “get lazy”.

8. In Search of the Holy Grail

Several retrospectives have returned to the same topic, we discuss it over and over again and without any result. Instead of looking for an ideal, try to take at least a small step forward, a small experiment that moves you forward. It may not be ideal, it may be completely out of place, but it is still better to try something than to think about it half a year to the last detail.

9. Empty Action Steps

Always make sure that all the action steps that fall out of your retrospective are assigned to a specific person, it is specified what specifically is to be done and by when the task is to be completed. You can use, for example, the technique SMART. Every retrospective should end with at least one action step. Scrum Guide even talks about the fact that at least one action step should be scheduled into the next sprint.

10. All tasks are on the Scrum Master (SM)

A typical situation is that SM is responsible for the Scrum process and deployment, and therefore the team has gained the impression that it is also responsible for all the tasks from the retrospective. In this case, the SM can offer the team to do the task with some member of the team in a pair or take on a maximum of one task, and the rest must be taken apart by the team.

11. Retrospective is monotonous

Try planning a retrospective at some unconventional location. Sometimes a meeting bag with seating bags is enough to conjure up a casual atmosphere or go out to the park. An alternative might be to sit down with a (non-alcoholic) beer in the pub that the team likes best. Don't be afraid to let your imagination run wild and experiment.

If you are interested in any of the tips, do not hesitate to try it and let us knowhow this experiment worked on your team.