How long should a retrospective be

Change what doesn't. But most teams are probably not going to be high performing, so suggesting in general a meeting length only appropriate for one is bad.

David Lee David Lee 29 2 2 bronze badges. Can you explain why these numbers are the correct lenghts? These match the scrum guide: scrumguides. Erik as Daniel said, it match the scrum guide, and as my experiences working in scrum team, it good t follow. But as the scrum guide, this is time box, it can reduce due to sprint situation, but it good to follow. Michael Brown Michael Brown Martin Wickman Martin Wickman The Overflow Blog. Podcast Explaining the semiconductor shortage, and how it might end.

Does ES6 make JavaScript frameworks obsolete? Featured on Meta. Now live: A fully responsive profile. Related 7. Hot Network Questions. Question feed. You can run sprint retrospective by gathering everyone in the same room or using online retrospective tools. The goal of retrospective is to elicit equal feedback from every team member on how the team can improve their performance.

By the end of the retrospective a team should have an actionable list of improvements that they can apply to their process during the next sprint. Here are the four main questions that should be part of any sprint retrospective: 1. What went well during the sprint? What did every team member learn? What puzzles every team member. You can add other questions for your team members in case they will help unveil issues that affect their performance and improve their productivity during the next sprint.

Mix up standard retrospective questions with the new ones. For example, ask team members who on their team helped them the most during the last sprint or how they would like to help other team members. In addition to that change the order of questions. Your email address will not be published. Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Sign up to our newsletter and stay updated with Geekbot developements.

March 21, Run Sprint Retrospectives in Slack! You can vote using a dot-voting approach, or in an online tool by upvoting or giving a thumbs up to a specific group. How long voting takes may depend on how many groups there are to choose from if there are only groups, voting will be quicker than if there are , for example. It may also be quicker if some groups consist of many reflections — indicating that there is a pressing issue that the team have centered on. Facilitator tip: To make sure voting results are clear, use weighted voting.

Ask your team to give 3 votes to their first choice, 2 votes to their second choice, and 1 vote to their third choice. The discussion phase is the real meaty part of the retrospective, when your team can huddle and identify those all-important improvements.

Discussions may seek to first diagnose why something cropped up as a problem and then search out a solution. The best team retrospective discussions are when the team successfully understands problems, diagnoses their root causes, and assigns tasks to resolve issues or make improvements.

Depending on how long discussions take for each group of reflections, you may want to take the first top voted items to discuss. This gives you roughly 10 minutes for each item, so divide your time wisely.

If something requires more time to discuss, take it into a Lean Coffee , organize a separate meeting with a smaller group, or resolve the issue asynchronously. Facilitator tip: Actively guide the team discussion by focusing on diagnosing problems, discussing solutions and setting next steps. There is no universal standard for the length of retrospectives. But there is a rough calculation you can use to decide on your retrospective length.

One hour should give most teams enough time to reflect, group, vote, and work through the most pressing issues. But there are a few scenarios in which you might want to make your retrospectives a bit longer:.

Exceptional situations may require exceptional solutions. Meetings longer than an hour can be tiring, and your team will thank you for the breather. In the regular course of work, it all depends on the length of the sprint. But in exceptional situations you might want to make them a little longer. Want to make sure your retrospectives are effective and balanced? Use a timer during each phase, so everyone knows how long they have to contribute on each section of the retrospective.

Now that you know how to structure and time your sprint retrospective, it will be much easier to plan your retrospectives according to the specifics of your project and the goals of your team, so you can make continuous improvement a reality! That way, the development team can head straight back to work with a strong sense of direction. These are tricky questions to answer, as you can technically host a retrospective at any time. However, sprint retrospectives are very particular tools that need to be utilized correctly, creating some ground rules for teams to follow.

Retrospectives are a time for teams to reflect on what they have learned and are a cornerstone of nearly all Agile project management methodologies. They should take place at pivotal moments in your project timelines , such as launching a new feature or reaching an important milestone.

When work is divided into sprints — as it is in most Agile methodologies — scheduling retrospectives is a little more rigid. As the name may suggest, sprint retrospectives are held when a sprint is completed — and, traditionally, immediately afterward. That being said, if we use sprint lengths as a guide we can map out a rough schedule for how frequently the retrospectives will run.

If your team prefers to work with longer sprint times, you may only need a retrospective once every couple of months. Finding the perfect balance can be a difficult task, as too many or too few retrospectives can be equally detrimental to the overall project. Retrospective meetings need to be held frequently enough that they maintain their usefulness, but not so sporadically that key issues have time to be forgotten.

A retrospective may be the only time you have to come together as a complete team, so you have to make it count.