General process – the 5 phases of a retrospective
Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2025 4:14 am
The Scrum team's retrospective can be described relatively well in 5 phases, as can be seen from the Scrum Guide. They are:
#1 Arrival: A certain formality is required when greeting to underline the importance of the meeting. It is also important to check at the beginning whether the desired participants of the retrospective are present. This is followed by a review of the most recent measures taken since the last retrospective meeting. It is also important to determine which period of time is currently being considered. This can be weeks, months or even years, although the latter is less common. The mood among the participants should also be assessed in order to check their willingness to cooperate.
#2 Collect data: The data should be collected depending on the situation and therefore flexibly. The step depends on what actually happened last. The team size, the topic specification and the time available must also be taken into account. The data is always collected using post-its. There is only one piece of feedback per post-it. It can be psychologically valuable to give the negative feedback first and put the positive one at the end so that it is remembered. Methods for collecting data are Starfish, SCS, LoSoMo, Happiness Index and Sailboat. These are mentioned here, among others .
#3 Gaining knowledge: Insights can be gained from grouping post-its, removing life insurance email list duplicate entries and naming groups. After grouping, the team discusses the new topics. It should be noted that this is not a discussion of solutions. First of all, the topics should only be enriched with context in order to understand them better. To do this, the participants ask questions to check their understanding. If the topics are clearly grouped and structured, improvements can be derived from them.
#4 Definition of improvements: For this, participants must write down suggestions and present them to the plenary. It must be made clear which improvements can be implemented within or outside the team. Participants prioritize the improvements, for example by distributing votes on individual post-its. At the end, the three most important improvements emerge, which are then assigned to a person for implementation. Implementation must be scheduled.
#1 Arrival: A certain formality is required when greeting to underline the importance of the meeting. It is also important to check at the beginning whether the desired participants of the retrospective are present. This is followed by a review of the most recent measures taken since the last retrospective meeting. It is also important to determine which period of time is currently being considered. This can be weeks, months or even years, although the latter is less common. The mood among the participants should also be assessed in order to check their willingness to cooperate.
#2 Collect data: The data should be collected depending on the situation and therefore flexibly. The step depends on what actually happened last. The team size, the topic specification and the time available must also be taken into account. The data is always collected using post-its. There is only one piece of feedback per post-it. It can be psychologically valuable to give the negative feedback first and put the positive one at the end so that it is remembered. Methods for collecting data are Starfish, SCS, LoSoMo, Happiness Index and Sailboat. These are mentioned here, among others .
#3 Gaining knowledge: Insights can be gained from grouping post-its, removing life insurance email list duplicate entries and naming groups. After grouping, the team discusses the new topics. It should be noted that this is not a discussion of solutions. First of all, the topics should only be enriched with context in order to understand them better. To do this, the participants ask questions to check their understanding. If the topics are clearly grouped and structured, improvements can be derived from them.
#4 Definition of improvements: For this, participants must write down suggestions and present them to the plenary. It must be made clear which improvements can be implemented within or outside the team. Participants prioritize the improvements, for example by distributing votes on individual post-its. At the end, the three most important improvements emerge, which are then assigned to a person for implementation. Implementation must be scheduled.