The retro is in the calendar. It gets moved because the sprint is not finished. The next time it happens: the first twenty minutes go to listing the same problems as last time, the rest of the hour goes to whose fault it was, and at the end everyone agrees to come back to it. The third time, someone suggests skipping the retro.
This is how the retrospective fades out in most teams. The team does want to improve. What the retro lacks is a structure that carries the conversation to a decision.
This page covers what a retrospective meeting is and what it is for, how to run one in an hour step by step, the mistakes that kill a retro, and when sticky notes, a digital board or cards are the right tool.
What a retrospective meeting is
A retrospective, or retro for short, is a team's regular conversation that looks back at an agreed period and decides what to change next. The word comes from Latin: retro, backwards, and spectare, to look.
The retro became known through software development and the Scrum framework, where it is held at the end of every sprint. It has nothing to do with code, though. A retrospective suits any team that works in cycles: a project team, a sales team, a daycare's staff, a management team. We wrote earlier about seven reasons to hold retrospectives in any industry, and the reasons still hold.
A retrospective differs from an ordinary meeting in three ways:
- It looks at the past, but its result is in the future. A retro does not plan the next cycle. It examines the previous one so that the next one goes better.
- The topic is the team's own way of working, not the customer, the product or the content of the project. How we did the work, not what work we did.
- The outcome is one or two changes to try during the next cycle. Not a ten-item list.
If a meeting does not do these three things, it may be a good meeting, but it is not a retrospective.
When to hold a retrospective
The value of a retro comes from repetition. One retro produces a list of observations. A regular retro produces change, because the previous retro's decision is checked in the next one.
A working rhythm is once every two to four weeks, or whenever a large piece of work is finished and the team is moving on to the next. Less often than monthly means people no longer remember what happened during the period. More often than weekly means changes cannot be tried before the next retro.
The most important rule is this: the retro stays in the calendar even when things are busy. Being busy is usually exactly what the retro should address. Niko Jokinen of City Dev Labs summed it up in his customer story: holding a retro is hard if it is not in the calendar, and once it is there, people start to look forward to it.
A retrospective agenda for 60 minutes
This agenda works for a team of 3 to 10 people, in the room and remotely. Anyone on the team can run it, including someone who has never facilitated anything. The only requirement is that the person running it sticks to the minutes.
1. Opening and scope (5 min). The person running the retro says out loud which period is being reviewed and what the goal is: one or two changes for the next cycle. Everyone says one sentence: how I am feeling right now. The round takes a minute per person and makes sure everyone has spoken once before the real conversation begins.
2. Write first (10 min). Everyone writes down, alone and without discussion, their answers to three questions: what went well, what did not, what surprised me. On a note, a screen or a card. This is the most important step of the retro, because it stops the first speaker from defining what everyone else talks about.
3. A round without comments (15 min). Everyone presents their observations in turn. The others listen. Questions are allowed, comments and debate are not. The person running the retro groups the observations as the same topics come up. At this stage the quiet team member's observation exists before the talkative one's fills the room.
4. Selection (10 min). From the grouped topics, the team picks one or two to act on. Not three, not five. The simplest way: the person running the retro asks everyone in turn which topic matters most, and the one with the most mentions is handled first.
An alternative is dot voting. Everyone gets three dots, stickers on the flip chart or marks on the digital board, and places them on topics however they like, even all three on the same one. The topic with the most dots is handled first. Dot voting suits larger teams and remote retros, because it is fast, silent and the result is visible to everyone at once.
This step is what separates a retro from a complaints round.
5. Discussion of the chosen topic (15 min). Now discussion is allowed. The question is not "whose fault", but "what do we change". The person running the retro keeps the conversation on the chosen topic and cuts it when the time is up.
6. Agreement (5 min). Write it down so that everyone sees the same text: what the intended change is, what will be done, who does it and by when it is checked. The agreement is read out loud. The next retro starts by checking whether it happened.
Six steps, sixty minutes. If the team is bigger than ten, steps 2 and 3 are done in pairs, otherwise the time is not enough.
The most common mistakes that make a retro fade out
We have seen hundreds of retrospectives across industries. The same six mistakes repeat whether the team is a software house or a municipal unit.
The retro is a complaints round. Problems are listed, but nothing is chosen and nothing is agreed. Next retro, the same list. Fix: step 4, selection, is mandatory, and step 6, the agreement, is always written down.
The same person talks 70 percent of the time. Often the team lead or the most experienced developer. The others nod. Fix: write first, then a round without comments. Structure divides the speaking time, not the good intentions of the person running the retro.
The previous decision is not checked. Something was agreed in the retro, but nobody asks in the next one whether it happened. Decisions start to feel meaningless. Fix: every retro starts by checking the previous agreement, and it takes two minutes.
The retro drags on. A ninety-minute retro where the first hour goes to describing problems. People start avoiding the retro. Fix: minutes for every step, and the person running it cuts.
The retro is different every time. The person running it has read about a new method and tries it out. Participants spend their energy learning the method, not on the content. Samuli Kiviniemi of Sanoma, who has run more than 500 retros, describes this in his interview: there was too much variation, and participants found it confusing. Fix: a familiar agenda, with variation coming from topics and perspectives, not from the structure.
The retro is skipped when things are busy. See the previous section. Being busy is a reason to hold the retro, not a reason to cancel it.
Running a retrospective remotely
A remote retro fails for the same reasons as one in the room, only faster. Cameras are off, two people talk and the rest read their email.
Remotely, the agenda matters even more than in the room. Three things change:
- The write-first step is done visibly. Everyone writes on a shared board or tool, and the person running the retro can see that everyone has written before moving on.
- Turns are named. "Who wants to start" does not work remotely. The person running the retro says a name, and the next one is known.
- Time is visible. A timer on the screen, not on the facilitator's wrist.
We wrote earlier in more detail about how to run an effective retrospective, also remotely.
Retrospective tools: sticky notes, a digital board or cards
The tool does not decide whether the retro succeeds. The structure does. The tool decides how much of the structure is left for the person running it to remember.
Sticky notes and a flip chart. The cheapest and most familiar. Works well for the write-first step and for grouping. Weakness: the person running the retro has to come up with the questions every time, the notes disappear after the retro, and remote teams need something else.
A digital whiteboard and retro tools. The natural choice for remote teams. The notes are kept and voting is fast. Weakness: the board fills up as easily as a flip chart, and the questions, the turns and the time are still the facilitator's responsibility.
Conversation cards. A deck where each card is one retro topic: conditions, processes, teamwork, quality. Everyone picks from their hand the cards that best describe the past period, presents them in turn, and the team finally chooses one to act on. The cards contain the retro agenda ready-made: the questions, the turns, the selection and the agreement. What is left for the person running it is to deal the cards and ask why.
This is what the Topaasia Retrospective deck is for. It was created in content collaboration with Vincit for software development teams' retros. The four suits of the deck are conditions, processes, teamwork and quality, and one game takes an hour. The same game works digitally for remote teams, and the documentation is created during the game. For mid-project retros, the Successful Project deck covers the success factors of a project from the people's perspective.
What a facilitator of 500 retros says
Samuli Kiviniemi of Sanoma Media Finland has run retrospectives for more than ten years and estimates the count at over 500. His three cornerstones of a successful retro are the same as this page's agenda: the meeting has a goal or a theme, the agreed actions go where the work is managed, and everyone gets heard regardless of how quiet or loud they are. A fourth observation is structure: a familiar agenda gives confidence to both the participants and the facilitator, and variation comes from topics and perspectives.
The most memorable retro, he says, was one with a negative starting point: a project that had gone badly and had not succeeded. Traditional sticky notes would have got to a good result, but in his estimate much more slowly. The contrast between how the retro went and how it could have gone was strongly positive.
At Vincit, the games have been used both in retros and in project kick-offs, and Vincit's customer story describes how raising issues and discussing them became easier under the cover of a game.
Frequently asked questions about retrospectives
What is a retrospective meeting?
A team's regular conversation that looks back at an agreed period and decides on one or two changes for the next one. The topic is the team's own way of working, not the content of the work.
How often should a retrospective be held?
Once every two to four weeks, or whenever a large piece of work is finished. Less often than monthly, people no longer remember the period. More often than weekly, changes cannot be tried out.
How long does a retrospective take?
An hour is enough for a team of 3 to 10 people when each step has its minutes. For a bigger team, 90 minutes or working in pairs.
Who runs the retrospective?
Anyone on the team, if the agenda is ready. An outside facilitator is needed only when the topic is so sensitive that nobody on the team can be neutral. Read more about facilitation and the facilitator's role.
How do you choose what to discuss in a retrospective?
Group the observations and pick one or two. In a small team, a round where everyone names the most important topic is enough. In a bigger team or remotely, dot voting works: three dots each, the topic with the most dots first.
What questions are asked in a retrospective?
Three basic questions are enough: what went well, what did not, what surprised us. A fourth separates a retro from a complaints round: what do we change next.
Do retrospectives suit teams other than software teams?
They suit any team that works in cycles. The agenda is the same, only the topics change.
A retro is the team's own moment
Venting is allowed in a retro. Often it is the only place where frustration can be said out loud and heard. The value of a retro comes from what happens after the venting: the team picks one thing to act on and looks next time at what happened. The questions, the turns, the minutes and the cards exist so that both fit into the hour: the talking and the decision.
If your retros feel like they lack energy or variety, try the Topaasia Retrospective game digitally or as a physical deck. At Sanoma it has been the retro tool of a facilitator with over 500 retros behind him: read Samuli Kiviniemi's customer story. More than 35,000 people have taken part in Topaasia sessions and rated them 4.2 out of 5.