An experiment with Sprint Retrospection

A sprint of 2 weeks makes a team experience a lot of things. People run around to seek answers to queries, get help on impediments, give help to solve challenges, finding solutions to infrastructure issues (which are, many a times, out of the team’s capabilities) and what not. Not everything is bad. People work hard, people work faster, better ever and produce the result they committed to during the planning. All in one Sprint!

The hurtling train of this agile team approaches the end of sprint with overwhelming accounts of experiences of each individual working in the team. And the time comes to an opportunity where team should stop and look back. Find out what has been accomplished and how, celebrate and appreciate those little wins; explore ideas of improving this team and figure out what can be done to bring this improvements. (Celebration is perhaps is mostly underrated part of a retro, in my experience so far, a topic I'd save for another day).

The last day of a sprint is unique in it’s own way, owing to the delivery pressures, last minute preparations, check-ins, some tests and what not. Many teams even think of skipping retrospective ceremony (another topic for another day, again). I am not surprised when those 2-week-run minds are tired and unable to (sometimes unwilling too, to) recall many things that happened in the sprint, to put up on the retrospection board. Hence this idea.

When you do your next sprint planning, create a Sprint Retrospection board also in the meeting and share it with the team. Ask them to post their ‘stickies’ throughout the sprint whenever they encounter an opportunity worthy of retrospection. This way, team will likely add more points than ever to the board leading to a constructive conversation in the actual ceremony.

Creating a retro board in advance provides an opportunity to the team to make notes of their experiences, good or bad, throughout the sprint. This further could help the team improve even in-the-sprint instead of waiting for the next one. Also, this board with prewritten points forms a good base for a real conversation in the actual ceremony.

How do you like this idea of creating and using a retrospection board in advance? Do share your experience if you have done this or once done. Thank you.