Retros:

The heart of agile is inspect and adapt; retrospective meetings ('retros') help make sure we do that

It is good practice—some would say, essential to doing Agile properly—to hold a “retrospective meeting” (or “retro” for short) at the end of each iteration (aka “sprint”).

The purpose of a retro can be summed up as:

On the Agile101 Guide the “every sprint” retro is called the heartbeat retros. We’ll consider these terms to mean the same thing:

Milestone Retro vs. Sprint Retro

The Agile 101 Guide also meantions a longer-form milestone retro which is held less often—maybe once or twice a year, for example—which the team reaches a major milestone in their product development. Because of the short length of the 10-week quarter at UCSB, in the context of CS48, we might do a milestone retro, if at all, at the end of the entire course, to reflect on the course as a whole.

Retro Templates

A “retro template” is a high-level outline for structuring a retro. Here are some popular templates:

Exercises

In addition to the templates above, there are also many exercises that can be used:

Many more links are listed below.

Choosing Exercises

The facilitator of the retro has the responsibility for choosing practices that they think will be effective for their team, taking into account factors such as:

Big Picture Values

It’s helpful to choose practices that are fun and engaging, and to change up the practices so that folks don’t get bored with the exercise. However, even more important is to focus on these big picture values:

Guides for retrospective facilitators

I would not suggest that you read ALL of these articles before running your first retro—that could lead to information overload.

Instead, I suggest skimming through until you find ONE that resonates for you and gives you a sense that you can take this on successfully. Then go back and revisit the other articles later as you get more experience.

Related topics: