Facilitating Great Sprint Retrospectives
Photo by AlienGraffiti
Last month's DFW Scrum user group meeting was on Overcoming the fear of Sprint Retrospective. I love retrospectives, so I was excited that the group was going to talk about them for an entire night. Here's why the topic was suggested:
Sprint Retrospective is by far the most underutilized and under appreciated meeting. Team members dread to go these meetings. Every Scrum Master has his own technique on how he overcame this and still there is always room to grow. Can we request a retro meeting please? Where we can share some thoughts on how different Scrum Masters of our group handle it & has seen success? :) Thanks
I agree that retrospectives are probably the most powerful and most underutilized ceremonies in scrum. And I think it's because most people don't know how to facilitate them well. Excellent retrospective facilitators know how to instill trust for openness and sharing, inspire creativity and brainstorming to generate new ideas, read the room to pick up on what’s not being said, handle conflict in a positive manner, maintain the timebox, and guide group decision-making. How do you learn to do all of that? Below is a lunch and learn presentation that outlines the format of retrospectives with some tips and tricks:
Great retrospectives don't just happen--they are the result of good planning and facilitation. Thankfully following scrum means a facilitator gets an opportunity to practice his skills each sprint!
