Conducting Agile Retrospective
There are multiple ways to do an agile retrospective. Each of them slightly differs from one to another, yet the end goal is the same. And we are going to see one of the popular and widely used approaches i.e. the five-stage approach.
Agile Retrospective
1. Set the Stage:
- Kick-start by inviting the concerned people to the meeting.
- Set up the meeting room and stuff that will help the team visually understand the retrospective.
- If it’s an in-person meeting, then a whiteboard will be good enough.
- A remote meeting needs an application to interact and visually represent ideas. Like, Microsoft Teams, Trello board, Confluence, and so on, and it is time for the team to take it ahead.
2. Gather Data:
- Make a table having 3 columns (what went well, what went wrong & what requires improvement).
- Put data from the sprint into those columns respectively. The data can be actions taken, results that occurred, decisions made, new approaches undertaken, milestones accomplished, and anything important in the sprint.
3. Generate Insights:
- It is time for expressing ideas not for criticizing others.
- Observe, analyze and understand the “problems, patterns and possibilities of improvements in the gathered data”.
- Once their brains get the required input with the data, they will start ANALYZING them.
- And then discuss. By this time, each one of the attendees of the meeting will be expressing their opinions and start finding smart solutions.
- Make an Action Plan, After stage 3, the team knows what they should stop doing, what they should start doing, and an ideal approach that brings in the real improvement of teamwork.
5. Close the Retrospective:
- Hereby, the meeting has come to the end. So, review the retrospective and the action plan.
- Fuel the fire inside by appreciating the efforts of the team for reaching the milestones successfully.
- Make note of the meeting in a document/record the meeting for future references.
- Get feedback on the retrospective.
- At last, do not forget to express Thank you for the cordial cooperation and for coming up with fruitful ideas. And then end the meeting.
Retrospective in Agile
Prerequisite: Agile Software Development Model
The agile software development model is now a popular software development model that is widely used by every IT industry for product development. Various meetings, practices, and teams are part of Agile development. An Agile Retrospective is one of the important meetings that is conducted mostly at the end of every product release. In this article, you will get to know more about what, where, why, how, and by whom this meeting is conducted.