Coach’s Corner
You need to ensure that retrospectives don’t become repetitive, as that can cause stagnation among the team. Regularly experiment with new retrospective formats that can draw the best ideas from everyone in the room. Each retrospective is an opportunity for you to be creative and explore new techniques.
Sometimes you can solve problems simply by getting all the team members to attend the sprint retrospective and come up with a few (but not too many) actionable improvements. Then the team must live the Scrum values of commitment and focus to uphold and implement those improvements.
Ask the teams these questions regularly:
- Is our quality getting better?
- Do we feel like a team?
- Are we living the Scrum values?
- Has our definition of done become more strict?
- What’s slowing us down, both technically and organizationally?
- How is the product owner/development team relationship?
- How are our relationships with people outside the Scrum team?
- Are we proud of the work we’re doing?
When used correctly, sprint retrospectives are a great tool to help keep your team moving forward in a positive way. It’s vital that they happen and are fruitful in outcomes that create solid improvements for the team. You, as a Scrum master, are accountable for making sure that happens.
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