Agile Retrospective Script

This is more a traditional format useful for a team of 5-8 developers.

Iteration Retrospective Script

Note: This is geared toward a 1hour time box

• First 10 min Facilitator Introduction

This is the retrospective for our team for iteration X. The goal is:

To help us improve the effectiveness of our team.

General Outline of the Retrospective

• What we accomplished.
• What we did well.
• What needs improvement?
• What should we do differently next time?
• First 10 min Introduction & Ground rules
• Laptops and mobile phones are off
• No interrupting each other
• Keep comments constructive
• This is not a discussion until the facilitator says so.
• The time limit is one hour
• First 10 min Display and Recite the Cardinal Rule
• “Regardless of what we discover, we understand and truly believe that everyone did the best job they could , given what they knew at the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand“.
• 10 – 15 Show what we did in your Iteration Planning Tool (XPPlanner, Jira, etc..) for Iteration X
• The Timeline view for Iteration X
• The Bugs Story
• 15 – 30 What went well?
• everyone takes three Post Its
• write down on the Post Its what went well (technical, team, organizational, process, general or specific)
• facilitator puts them on the poster in a way that they are not visible to the group
• facilitator reads them all out in random order with no comments
• facilitator gets the group to brainstorm (no criticism) on themes of what went well and writes them down for all to see
• Write down 3 things only? Or everything?

• 30 – 50 What needs improvement?
• repeat Step Above
• vote on the importance of the themes and chose the three most important to discuss
• facilitate discussion to generate action items for making improvements based on the three most important themes

• 50 – 60 Conclusion/Action Items