How to Run Better Retrospectives

In the previous article, I diagnosed issues with what I called the standard approach.
I recommend reading it first before jumping into this article. What I encourage you even more to do is conduct a retrospective of your retrospective meeting. You may find your own issues that I did not mention. As stated in the previous article, each team has different dynamics and hence they may have different issues. Therefore, there is no single solution that would fit all cases.

In the current article, I will address the diagnosed issues. However, do not treat this as a magic wand that will fix all problems. You can either implement all suggestions or just small parts of it, depending on your team’s needs.

Like every meeting, it is important to define why people are there. Hence defining the goal is crucial for the success of the retrospective meeting , and this is where we begin.

A successful meeting requires three elements: a clear objective, active participation, and tangible next steps. Let’s examine what each element should entail.. However, the most critical step is defining both the retrospective’s timeframe and its objective. This foundation will guide the entire discussion.

Why conduct retrospectives? Long story short, we aim to continuously improve. This requires identifying what to change or cultivate. We can discover it by looking at our past actions. However, we cannot look too much into the past since the scope will be too vast for the people and the discussion will suffer.
First, we need to know what the scope of the retrospective is. It could be either a just finished project or a specific time period. Clear scope boundaries prevent the discussion from wandering off-topic.

The word ‘retrospective’ offers insight into its purpose. Derived from Latin, ‘retro’ (backward) and ‘specere’ (to look) literally mean ‘to look backwards’. Hence during the meeting, we should only focus on the past time. Future-oriented discussions, such as risk identification, deserve separate, forward-looking meetings.

Once we know what the scope under discussion is, it is time to define the second most important part – the goal. For each time period, we should have a clearly defined objective. It guides us and gives us feedback if we are going in the good direction.

Retrospectives often drift toward topics unrelated to the period’s business goal. That is why it is so crucial to state what our goal was.
Regardless if it is single project under consideration or some period of time. We have to have some business objective. Two questions should anchor the discussion: Did we achieve our objective? And if so, why—or why not? Such simple questions should guide us through the entire retrospective.

Whether the goal was achieved or not, ask the same question: Why? Depending on your team’s dynamics, you might facilitate an open discussion immediately or have members write their thoughts on sticky notes first. Choose the format that best suits your team’s communication style.

When the team achieves its goal, there’s a natural tendency to still focus on problems. But retrospectives shouldn’t only highlight what went wrong. Identify what worked well so the team knows which practices to continue.

A simple ‘why’ question can yield the same insights as more elaborate retrospective frameworks. Answering ‘why’ naturally reveals three things: what to continue (what worked), what to stop (what failed), and what to start (what’s missing). Overcomplicating with too many questions dilutes focus and distracts from the core issue.

When facilitating, keep the objective front and center. Therefore with each note, we should ask ourselves how does it relate to the goal? If it does not, let’s park this for later. These off-topic items might suit a one-to-one conversation or a brief discussion after the daily standup.
Having clear anchor reduces number of raised points on different topics. Therefore, we save our time on endless ceremonies (such as sorting notes and voting) that could be used for the discussion.

You don’t have to discuss every problem. There is a very simple explanation why – you won’t solve all of them. This doesn’t mean ignoring problems, but rather recognizing that not every issue requires retrospective time.
Many problems can be addressed more effectively outside of the retrospective meeting.

A common mistake: waiting until the next retrospective to raise concerns. Why wait? Issues are easier to resolve when raised immediately. If we wait and don’t raise an issue then it can costs us not achieving our goal.
We don’t have to wait to share observations or feedback until the retrospective. Small incremental improvement should be part of our daily work.

Two words define effective action items: tangible and limited. Tangible means immediately implementable upon leaving the room. Limited because attempting everything accomplishes nothing, less is often more.
I’ve repeatedly seen teams define five or more action items, only to accomplish none by the next retrospective. Fewer action items enable better focus and follow-through.

We need to take goals seriously. Simply logging tasks in a ticketing system defeats the retrospective’s purpose. We need to implement them as soon as possible so we can observe the results and to be able to make an informed decision on the next steps.

The ideal retrospective doesn’t exist—it varies by team, context, and numerous other factors. However, teams do control two things: what they discuss and how they discuss it. By keeping our focus on our objectives, we help ourselves to increase quality of discussions. This leads to overall improvement of defined actions.

How do we know whether a retrospective was effective? One indicator: you leave with concrete action items you can implement immediately. However, it does not guarantee you success. You need to monitor and observer, if we don’t repeat the same mistakes again.

Remember, the retrospective is not the only place and time when we should talk about the team’s improvements. Such work should be done every single day.