Retro Lounge

The retro lounge collates all posts relating to agile retrospectives on this blog.

Theory and Practice

Retrospective starter exercises

Retrospective ideas
Scenario-based retrospective ideas
Retrospective outcomes


Further resources

  • Fun Retrospectives - activities and ideas for making agile retrospectives more engaging. Absolutey awesome resource. Jam packed with ideas for retrospectives, futurospectives, and team building 

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Agile Retrospective: fire extinguisher or mop up (30 - 60 minutes)

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Do you have a list of things decided or agreed in previous retrospectives that still haven't been moved forward. It's easy in a sprint to focus on today's problems, and forget about what we said yesterday. I've certainly been guilty of this. Apart from keeping a retro log of all the actions that are decided in a retrospective, it can be useful once in a while to revisit things that have been discussed and agreed previously, but are still outstanding. This retro allows teams to reflect on the problems and decision that were made over the past few months, and decide whether they're still an issue - and if they are, what to do about it. Setup Draw a fire extinguisher, and surround it with empty sticky notes On another section of the board, draw a bucket and mop On sticky notes, write a short summary of decisions / actions agreed in previous retrospectives that are still outstanding. Stick these around the bucket and mop. Instructions Ask the team - "are there any ...
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Book Chapter Summary | Scrum: The Art of Doing Twice the Work in Half the Time (New York, 2014) by Jeff Sutherland - Chapter One: The Way the World Works is Broken

Chapter One: The Way the World Works is Broken Traditional management approaches have repeatedly failed to deliver big technology projects. Scrum is proven to help such projects deliver more stuff with higher quality at lower cost with fewer people and in less time. Quick Summary Planning is useful, but plans fall apart so assume you'll need to be flexible You're toast if your organisation doesn't change its traditional "command and control" management Fail fast and learn from mistakes - get user feedback early so you can immediately eliminate any wasted effort Main Points The world is constantly getting more complicated, and the work we do along with it. Whenever people are involved in a complex, creative effort traditional management methods break apart. Scrum brings teams together to create great things. That involves everyone understanding the end goal, and delivering incrementally towards that goal. Too much of life is wasted on work that you and your boss re...
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Agile Retrospective: Legacy of the past and hopes for the future (20 - 40 mins)

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Sometimes we want to reflect on the broader picture. Where have we been, what challenges have we faced and overcome, and where are we going.  This retrospective works well for project / product milestones, or as an exercise for starting a new year. It looks back at a longer period of time than a single sprint, before looking forward to next year or iteration. It covers the gather ideas section of a retrospective. For more info, see the post on how to structure an agile retrospective . Legacy of the Past Ask the team to reflect on the biggest challenges they've faced over a given time period (for example, over the past 6 months, or over the past year) Ask each team member to capture their thoughts on sticky notes OPTIONAL: give the team a few themes to reflect such as customer input, teamwork, wider project and development process Hopes for the future Referring back to the legacy of the past, ask the team to reflect on their hopes for the future: where do we want to be in 6, or 12 m...
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