• Timebox: (1-2) hours at the end of the iteration
• Purpose: Provides Agile team the opportunity to reflect on the committed sprint and look for opportunities for continuous improvement, and cross-functionality. What is working well, any obstacles, and action items in user stories for the next sprint.
• Attendees – SM and Team. PO is optional
• Facilitator: SM
• Preparation: Cadence has been scheduled and Retro Board shared with the team in advance. 

Each Agile team member is transparent about the below questions:

• What went well during this iteration that the team should continue doing
• What can be improved?
• What are any obstacles? 
• Scrum Master helps the team in discovery – not provide answers 

• 1.5 hrs/2 weeks sprint 
• Purpose: Opportunity for learning, improving the product quality and team effectiveness by inspecting the current sprint execution (planned vs achieved commitments, values, and goals) 
• Attendees: Scrum/Agile Team, SM, and ideally PO, to maintain a safe environment for the team. However, other stakeholders can be invited by the team request 
• Facilitator: SM  
• Preparation:  
  • The facilitator selects a retrospective technique to address the challenges experienced by the team during the sprint 
  • The facilitator collects objective facts: data, metrics, observations 

1. Get the participants focus on the activity 
2. Gather the facts from the iteration: Data, metrics, objective observations 
3. Define the problems to be addressed  
4. Understand the root causes of the problems 
5. Find solutions to the problem 
6. Determine an action plan 

•  Instill a safe environment for dialogue by sharing the Prime Directive “everyone did his best - no blame” + Las Vegas Rule  
•  Start with an icebreaker to provide focus and outline the goals of the activity 
•  Revisit the actionable improvement plan from last retrospective 
•  Gather the facts from the current iteration (objective observation from team members, team member behaviors, work process, tools, Burndown, Sprint Report, Velocity Chart, CFD, …) 
•  Make groups/clusters of similar statements 
•  Define the core problem by adding problem statements as header on each of the groups 
•  Prioritize the list of problems with, for example, a dot-voting activity 
•  Understand the problem to solve by investigating the root causes with, for example, the 5 WHY, Fishbone Diagram, Pareto Analysis, ... 
•  Find solutions for each root cause 
•  Determine an action plan: Stories are added to the backlog to address the improvement, who is responsible/owner, and how success will be measured 
•  Close out: Recap with highlights and takeaways from the activity 

•  Did the meeting start on time
•  Did all the Agile Team attend the Retrospective
•  Did team members feel safe? 
•  Retro board created and visible for the team
•  Action items created as user stories for the next sprint 
•  Were the team members actively engage
•  Did the meeting end on time
•  The team is proud of their accomplishments and can celebrate
•  The event was facilitated by the Scrum Master
•  Did the team have webcam cameras on at all times 

2022-09-02 HCD PI20 S2 Retro • Tantus Tech (mural.co)

Duration: 1hr

Attendees: Meaghan Hudak (SM), Rob Fay, Chelsea Brigg, Amy Castellani, Brian Flaherty

• A team member mentioned extending the retro invite to other external stakeholders for transparency.
  • The retro is an activity exclusively for the internal team including SM and PO so that team members feel safe enough to engage, speak up, and discuss their opportunities for improvements.
• SM did a good job kicking off and explaining the activity and the timebox for collecting the facts from the iteration
  
  • SM could have reminded the team when the timebox is at 50%, and 10% remaining. However, the SM asked if more time is needed near the end of the timebox.
• SM should clarify the criteria before each subsequence activity: for example criteria for grouping or voting before the activity is started. However, it get clarify when a team member asked the question
• The tickets were discussed per priority of the vote (tickets with high votes were discussed first). However, there were good discussions but the opportunities to capture the action items were missed. EX: Discussion about confusing guidance from CMS leadership, internal peer-review request => No action items were captured
  • SM should pay attention to capture the action items in agreement with the team
• Low team member engagement: only 2 out of the 4 team members were really engaged in the discussions. Another reason why the retro should remain exclusive to the team.