Team Lead facilitates agile Retrospective? 10 Key Tips

Hey dear team leads of agile crews! As a psychologist and Scrum Master, I’m sharing some essential tips today on moderating agile retrospectives when you’re not in the Scrum Master role yourself, but rather in that of a team lead or some form of “boss”. As a leader and servant leader, how can you get the most out of this important moment in the agile process? Let’s look for answers together!

First things first: It goes without saying that it is not ideal if you facilitate the agile retrospective as the team lead, i.e. (depending on your specific form of organization) potentially even the official decision-maker of an employee. Why is that? 

Of course, this is because it can greatly inhibit the absolutely necessary, open atmosphere in the team. The less open you are to sharing honest feedback, the less fruitful your retrospective will be. It may even end in a so-called zombie scrum.

In this respect, if possible, try to have as neutral a facilitator as possible for your retrospective. However, if this is not possible for whatever reason, here are at least a few tips to get the best out of your situation.

1. Preparation is crucial:

   • Prepare the retrospective well by setting the agenda in advance. Make sure that enough time is planned for each phase.
   • Collect feedback or topics from team members in advance to make the discussion more targeted. Tools such as Echometer, for example, can help you to do this via a survey.

2. Create a positive atmosphere:

   • Emphasize the constructive nature of the retrospective. The goal is to identify improvements, not to assign blame. In short, don’t forget to include the question “What went well?”
   • Use icebreakers or short games to create a relaxed atmosphere and bring the team closer together.

3. Keep an eye on the time:

   • Make sure that the retrospective stays within the specified time frame. Respect the team members’ time and stick to the planned agenda.

4. Use various retrospective techniques:

   • Use different methods to create variety and highlight different aspects of collaboration. Here are 50 agile retrospective ideas for every team .

5. Focus on concrete measures:

   • Make sure that concrete actions and measures are identified during the retrospective to address the identified areas for improvement - only then will the team feel taken seriously by you as a leader.

6. Promote active participation:

   • Encourage all team members to actively participate. Make sure that everyone has the opportunity to share their perspective.

7. Be neutral and objective - your opinion comes last:

   • As a moderator, try to remain neutral and objective. Avoid getting too involved in the discussion yourself or dominating with your opinion. As a leader, you can greatly influence others with your opinion and contribute massively to “group think”. Simple rule of thumb: Your opinion should be mentioned last.

8. Obtain feedback on the process:

   • Ask for feedback after the retrospective to improve your moderation as well. This shows that you are open to suggestions and support continuous improvement. For example, the “ROTI score” has proven its worth in Echometer: A simple question about how well the time was invested in the retro, “Return On Time Invested”.

9. Record the results:

   • Document the results of the retrospective, including the actions identified. This helps with tracking and shows progress over time.

10. Promote self-organization:

    • Encourage the team to find self-organized solutions. Give them the freedom to improve their own processes and support them in taking responsibility.

11. Enable anonymous feedback:

    • If necessary, offer the opportunity for anonymous feedback. Sometimes team members feel freer to express their opinions when they are sure that their identity is protected. Especially if you facilitate the retro as team lead. Tools like Echometer can also help you a lot here.

"Many team members are afraid to speak up!"

Solve this challenge

"We discover too many unexpected issues & bugs at a late stage!"

Solve this challenge

"Why does it sometimes take me hours to prepare a simple retrospective?"

Solve this challenge

Many of the above points can be relieved by a good retro and team development tool such as Echometer. It has been specially developed for when there is no dedicated full-time Scrum Master in teams.

Echometer is a digital tool that helps agile team leads with agile retrospectives and team Health Checks. Whether remote, hybrid or on-site: it makes team coaching measurable and professionalizes your work while saving you a lot of work. Just take a look at our website to find out more: www.echometerapp.com.

Also worth an experiment: You as a team lead let the team conduct a retro without you and ask if this is preferred by the team.

Christian Heidemeyer, Psychologist & Scrum Master

Facilitating agile retrospectives is about more than just talking. Active listening, diversity of perspectives, concrete action items and many other things (see above) are the key to their success in the medium term.

Finally, one more note: If you would like to try out how it feels to develop your team further with our tool: You can start an agile retrospective without logging in below, in this case the “Keep, Stop, Start” workshop. 

Alternatively, simply forward our website to the responsible colleagues: www.echometerapp.com.

How to

Keep stop start retro: How the retro works

1. Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)

   Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.

2. Review of open actions (2-5 minutes)

   Before starting with new topics, you should talk about what has become of the measures from past retrospectives to check their effectiveness. Echometer automatically lists all open action items from past retros.

3. Discuss retro topics

   Use the following open questions to collect your most important findings. First, everyone does it themselves, covered. Echometer allows you to reveal each column of the retro board individually in order to then present and group the feedback.

   • Continue: What should we keep?
   • Stop: What should we stop doing?
   • Start: What should we start doing?

4. Catch-all question (Recommended)

   So that other topics also have a place:

   • What else would you like to talk about in the retro?

5. Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)

   On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.

6. Define actions (10-20 minutes)

   You can create a linked action via the plus symbol on a feedback. Not sure which measure would be the right one? Then open a whiteboard on the topic via the plus symbol instead to brainstorm root causes and possible measures.

7. Checkout / Closing (5 minutes)

   Echometer enables you to collect anonymous feedback from the team on how helpful the retro was. This creates the ROTI score ("Return On Time Invested"), which you can track over time.

Keep stop start retro

Continue: What should we keep?

Stop: What should we stop doing?

Start: What should we start doing?

Open this retro now Customize...