Thread by @LogRocket

If you’re part of a cross-functional product team, you may have taken part in a sprint retrospective. If you’re new to #productmanagement, this guide will get you up to speed on what a sprint retro is and why it’s important

#agile #agilecoach #scrum blog.logrocket.com/product-manage…

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A sprint retrospective is a scrum ceremony that is held once a sprint has ended to reflect on the work that has just taken place.

The team reviews processes, ways of working, and key learnings with the aim of improving the team’s performance during subsequent sprints.

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A sprint retrospective is held at the end of a sprint, before the next sprint begins. If your sprint is 2 weeks long, the sprint retro meeting might be as short as 1 hour. If you’re working on a longer sprint cycle or on a larger team, the retro might last up to 3 hours.

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The purpose of a sprint retrospective is for the team to pause and reflect on how things went during the sprint. These learnings should help subsequent sprints run more smoothly.

The goal is to continuously improve how the team works together & optimize processes & tools.

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A sprint retrospective focuses on 3 areas:

1. What went well?
2. What could be improved (i.e., what slowed the team's progress?)
3. Actions to address what could be improved (how to solve any issues raised)

The facilitator then assigns all the actions items to the team

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A scrum master normally facilitates the retro, but it can be run by another role, such as a delivery manager, depending on the team setup. It's good to have a neutral third party facilitate, so call on a member of another cross-functional team to run the retro if you can.

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The other members of the team — product designers, devs, QAs, PMs, UX designers, etc. — contribute learnings and ideas to the sprint retrospective.

Other stakeholders may be involved in the sprint retrospective if they form a core part of the cross-functional team.

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Although they both occur at the end of a sprint, a sprint review is quite different from a sprint retro.

A sprint review focuses on the actual work (tickets completed, bugs resolved, etc.) with the aim of updating the backlog. A retro is focused on performance & process.

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3 things to keep in mind when running a sprint retrospective:

1. The session is a safe space — no blame games when discussing things that didn’t go well
2. Everyone has a chance to speak
3. Listen to others and wait your turn — no talking over one another

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Some best practices for running a sprint retro:

• Consider the best tool for the session
• Time-box each activity
• Group similar items together & label themes as you go
• Take a photo of the sprint retrospective board
• Take a moment to celebrate what went well

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A typical sprint retro agenda covers what went well, what didn't, & ideas & actions to improve subsequent sprints.

Alternate sprint retrospective meeting templates include:

- Glad, Sad, Mad
- Start, Stop, Continue
- Sailboat
- Four Ls

More info: blog.logrocket.com/product-manage…

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A sprint retrospective is a great way to reflect on your team's performance & consider actions to improve processes during your next sprint.

Start with the most basic framework before experimenting with the others as you get more comfortable running retros. Good luck!

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