What — Definition of a Retrospective
Definition: A retrospective is a regular meeting during which the team reflects on how team members work together and considers ways to improve that process, based on lessons from recently completed work.
Retrospectives take the format of a facilitated meeting; although they are typically practiced within an Agile or Scrum process, they can benefit any team, whatever design or development methodology it employs.
Why Retrospectives Are Useful
Successes teach us to do more of what we did well next time. But we can often learn even more from failures: maybe one small tweak could have saved the entire effort. In any case, as decades of quality-engineering experience have shown, continuous process improvements sustainably increase quality and productivity. This principle is as true in user-experience design as in assembly-line manufacturing of automobiles. To keep getting better, we should periodically reflect on our methods.
When to Run a Retrospective and Whom to Invite
If you’re on a Scrum team, a retrospective is held at the very end of the sprint, between the sprint review and the planning of your next sprint. If you don’t work in sprints, you can have a retrospective every two weeks, every month, or every quarter to best fit your team’s needs.
When preparing for a retrospective, include all members of the team in the meeting. Even if a role is only partially dedicated to a team, it should still be included, as the corresponding team members can provide feedback.
How: 4 Steps to Running a Retrospective
1. Set Expectations Early
Productive meetings have clear expectations and goals prior to their start. First, set up a calendar invitation that includes an agenda and desired outcome of the meeting. For Scrum teams, include your sprint goal to keep the discussion focused on the specific increment of work.
Once the meeting begins, set some ground rules for everyone to follow:
- Don’t play the blame game. Keep the focus away from personal attacks or blaming a specific person or role. Instead of saying, “You caused…,” use inclusive language such as “We fell short,” or “This activity slowed us down.”
- Focus on continuous improvement. The goal of the retrospective is to improve as a team. Think about what could help the team work better together, not the shortcomings of specific individuals.
- Keep an open mind. Not everyone on the team may have experienced what one person has identified as a talking point. Don’t immediately dismiss someone else’s thoughts; help the team pursue new ideas, even if they don’t personally affect you.
You’ll also want to determine how the team will exchange ideas and information during the meeting. Start by giving everyone sticky notes and have them write their ideas anonymously, one per note. Categorize the stickies on a whiteboard and go through each one.
If your team is comfortable with open discussion, you can go around the room person by person. You can also use video and live-editing software for teams with remote members. Regardless of the method or tool you choose, make sure that everyone is comfortable with it. Avoid highly specialized tools that are unfamiliar to most of the team, even though, in theory, they may offer a large number of potentially useful features.
2. Discuss What Went Well
Once ground rules are set, discuss what went well. Start by thinking about what propelled the team forward. You can acknowledge accomplishments of team members, but be genuine and brief. The focus of the meeting should be on accomplishments of the team as a whole rather than on those of specific individuals. You can prompt your team with questions such as:
- What went well?
- What did you like?
- What did you learn?
- What tools or techniques were useful?
3. Discuss What Needs Improvement
Once what went well is discussed, shift the team to discuss what could be improved next time. Remember the ground rules — avoid personal attacks or the blame game. To keep the conversation productive, prompt your team with questions such as:
- What was lacking?
- What do you want less of?
- What should we do differently?
- What isn’t clear?
- Where did things go wrong?
- What is stopping us from moving forward?
4. Create an Action Plan
This step is the most important in a retrospective. Without a plan going forward, improvements are not addressed, and the retrospective becomes repetitive and unproductive.
Based on the discussion of improvements, create a list of action items that can realistically be completed before the next retrospective meeting. If an action item is too large to be completed, break it down into smaller action items and complete it over multiple iterations. If further prioritizing is needed, use a prioritization matrix to determine which items are most important.
Once you have your list of action items, assign a due date and an owner to each one for accountability. Record your action items in a place that everyone on the team can access for easy followup.
After the Retrospective
Once the retrospective is over, make sure the team follows up on the action items. Check in on progress during other meetings before your next retrospective as a reminder to team members. At your next retrospective meeting, start by crossing off the action items that were completed since the last meeting. If you track action items via an online tool, categorize items based on what has been completed versus what is still outstanding. Carry over any outstanding action items to your next retrospective’s action plan.
Tips for Effective Retrospectives
Share the facilitator role. Don’t always rely on the same person to lead the meeting. Having another individual facilitate will help keep team members engaged over time.
Track patterns over time. Revisit patterns at the end of a project or milestone to show how the team has improved. Tracking action items can also help onboard a new team member (by providing context) and can make that member comfortable with contributing new ideas.
Avoid discussion that is dominated by one or two people. Encourage the entire team to contribute to the discussion. Using sticky notes allows introverted team members to contribute anonymously so their ideas are still heard.
Set a consistent cadence for the meeting. Whether it happens every two weeks, month, quarter, or so on, make sure retrospectives are happening regularly on your team. The team will continue to get comfortable with discussion and the meetings will become more effective with time.
Variations of Retrospectives
For Product Teams
Product teams are the obvious choice for conducting retrospectives, as team members are working together on a daily basis. As team members start to trust each other over time, retrospectives become more productive and lead to deeper insights. Some meetings may be more focused on what went well than others, but if your team is meeting regularly and no issues ever come up, there is a good chance that the team doesn’t feel comfortable enough to bring them up in discussion. If this is the case, reevaluate who is in the room. Are team members afraid to contribute because a superior is monitoring what issues are brought up? Make the retrospective a safe space to bring up issues without fear of retaliation. Every team will have areas for improvement and it should be clear to those in the meeting that bringing issues up for discussion should not be seen as negative.
For UX Teams
Retrospectives can be useful tools amongst UX teams, especially if these teams aren’t embedded in product teams, as they can help UX professionals focus on specific processes or evaluation methods. For example, if a UX team just started implementing design thinking as a new process, a retrospective meeting would allow the team to discuss what worked and what to change for next time.
For Leadership Teams
When implementing a new company initiative or strategic plan, retrospectives can provide a platform for discussing how successfully the team worked together. Leadership teams also benefit from retrospectives on a monthly, quarterly, or yearly basis to check in on leadership goals.
Meta Retrospective
At regular, but rare, intervals (maybe once a year), you can conduct a retrospective of your retrospectives: a meta retrospective. Are you running your retrospectives right? Do they help make subsequent projects better? Most important, do you see regular improvements in your design process, or are you playing a game of whack-a-mole where every time you knock down one weakness, another pops up to take its place?
Conclusion
Retrospectives are a dedicated time to come together and collaboratively improve your team’s process. They can be used at multiple places in the product development cycle and their benefits are varied: stronger communication, increased trust among team members, and a plan for moving forward. Maximizing the effectiveness of your retrospectives is the first step toward better sprints and milestones.
Learn more about retrospectives in our full-day training course, Lean UX and Agile.
Web Resources
Atlassian.com: How to Run an Agile Retrospective Meeting with Examples, https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/retrospective
AgileAlliance.org: What is a Retrospective?, https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/heartbeatretro
Scrum.org: What is a Sprint Retrospective?, https://www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-sprint-retrospective
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