Step 7: Sprint Retrospective

Quick reference

• 00:03 Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
• 00:04 I'd now like to talk about the final activity that
• 00:07 was part of the Agile Scrum sprint process.
• 00:09 That is step number 7, the sprint retrospective.
• 00:14 The sprint retrospective is just that.
• 00:17 A retrospective look at the sprint that has just completed.
• 00:21 The meeting is a lessons learned meeting.
• 00:23 Its purpose is to improve the sprint process.
• 00:26 It's not a design review or another sprint demo meeting
• 00:29 where shortcomings from the first sprint demo are addressed.
• 00:33 It is normally conducted immediately following the sprint and
• 00:36 prior to the next sprint.
• 00:38 That way, the lessons to be learned are still fresh in everyone's mind and
• 00:42 the improvements can be immediately implemented.
• 00:45 The participants are the Scrum master, product owner, and
• 00:47 all of the Scrum team members.
• 00:49 However, senior management and business team members are not invited.
• 00:53 Remember the focus is in the sprint process, not the sprint deliverables.
• 00:57 If senior management has a process comment,
• 01:00 they should filter that through the product owner or the Scrum master.
• 01:04 The focus is on continuous improvement, not assigning blame or passing out awards.
• 01:09 This doesn't mean that the team can't hold each other accountable.
• 01:12 If a team member frequently missed Scrum team meetings the team should address that
• 01:16 issue with the individual.
• 01:18 But no personal attacks.
• 01:20 Just keep things factual and focused on process.
• 01:24 I do that by asking two questions.
• 01:26 The first question is, what did we do well in this sprint that we wanna continue.
• 01:31 This is used to reinforce the good habits and practices.
• 01:34 It can also be a not so
• 01:36 subtle way to encourage other team members in best practices.
• 01:41 Complimenting several individuals for how they did a particular task or
• 01:44 activity can be a teaching moment for the others who did not do things that way.
• 01:49 I will sometimes stop and ask someone to explain how they did a best practice and
• 01:53 to describe the benefit that came from it.
• 01:56 The other question to ask, what can be improved in the next sprint?
• 02:00 The team may come up with dozen's of ideas or almost none.
• 02:04 If they have lots of ideas, pick a few and work on those.
• 02:07 If they don't have any ideas and
• 02:09 the sprint result really was very good, we'll then that's okay.
• 02:13 but be sure you reinforce the answers from the first question
• 02:16 about what should be continued.
• 02:19 Let's look at roles, responsibilities and deliverables.
• 02:23 The Scrum team, Scrum master and product owner are all participants and
• 02:27 provide their comments.
• 02:28 The Scrum master is normally facilitating the session and consolidates
• 02:32 the recommendations in order to remind the team during the next session and
• 02:35 to share with other Scrum masters in the organization.
• 02:39 As already mentioned, senior management does not attend.
• 02:42 Notice that this is not a final report of the project for senior management or
• 02:46 stakeholders.
• 02:47 That report would more likely come in the form of the sprint demonstration minutes.
• 02:52 This meeting is a continuous improvement process management meeting.
• 02:56 In my experience, these meeting will take an hour or two for ones that are done
• 03:00 after an early sprint within an organization that is new to Agile Scrum.
• 03:04 But over time, the Scrum team members know what to expect,
• 03:07 and how to use the meeting for improvement.
• 03:10 And the duration drops to about 30 to 45 minutes.
• 03:13 So what did our museum website upgrade project discuss
• 03:16 during their retrospective?
• 03:19 In answer to the first question, they thought their estimates were pretty
• 03:22 accurate and the team worked well together with everyone sharing ideas and opinions.
• 03:26 And they found that the Scrum team meetings were very helpful.
• 03:29 All those they'll want to continue as we start the next sprint.
• 03:34 They also identified a few areas for improvement.
• 03:36 One was an earlier identification of roadblocks.
• 03:39 In one instance a Scrum team member spent nearly two days trying to work
• 03:43 through a roadblock.
• 03:44 When the Scrum master was finally involved it was resolved within a few hours.
• 03:48 This will be a tough one for team members because asking for
• 03:52 help has historically been viewed as a sign of weakness or laziness.
• 03:57 The second item to be improved was more frequent meetings with the product owner.
• 04:01 Since some of the activities involved a certain amount of esthetics and
• 04:05 graphic design decisions, these are hard to document in the demo criteria.
• 04:10 What was needed was input from the product owner to determine
• 04:13 if the Scrum team member was proceeding in a good direction.
• 04:16 To ensure this,
• 04:17 we decided that the product owner would plan to spend about a half hour after each
• 04:22 Scrum meeting with the team to review anything that they wanted me to look at.
• 04:26 An important principle in Agile is continuous improvement.
• 04:33 The sprint retrospective does this.
• 04:35 And by holding this after the completion of one sprint and
• 04:38 before the start of the next sprint, it gives everyone the chance to implement and
• 04:42 apply the lessons learned.

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