Team retrospectives (14 FAQs)

The best retrospective templates, formats or techniques that lead to real improvements and action depend heavily on your team and challenges. The “Drive & Drag” format, the “Battery Retrospective” and the “Moral-Health Check”, each from Echometer, often work well. All three retrospective templates can be found in the retrospective software tool Echometer.

I have listed the questions of the 3 retrospective templates and techniques mentioned here:

Battery retrospective

Here is the link to the “Akku” retrospective in Echometer.

• How full is your personal battery as a percentage right now?
• What has drained your battery recently?
• What has recharged your battery recently?
• What would help you to save energy over the next few weeks?

Drive & Drag Retrospective

Here is the link to the “Drive & Drag” retrospective in Echometer.

• What has been driving you recently?
• What has slowed you down recently?

Morale Health Check: query of agreement from 1 (low) to 7 (high)

Here is the link to the “Moral Health Check” retrospective template in Echometer.

• I have enough space for breaks in which I can draw new energy.
• Our meetings are well structured and still leave room for creativity and new things.
• In my team, every team member passes on their individual knowledge and experience.
• We value the achievements and contributions of our colleagues.
• Everyone in my team knows who is currently working on what.
• There is a trusting working atmosphere in our team.

Retrospectives can be particularly productive for small IT engineering teams if you focus on specific challenges. For example, the small team can analyze how the last bugs came about or how the sprint goal was missed. The retrospective software tool Echometer, which offers various templates for productive retros in small teams, is particularly recommended for small IT engineering teams.

Various retrospective templates, techniques and ideas are suitable for use in particularly large remote or virtual teams. For example, the “Keep Stop Start” template, “Mad Sad Glad” and the “Sailboat Retrospective” are well suited for large teams.

Why Echometer?

They are therefore well suited for large teams because the questions are rather easy to answer and allow short answers.

Important to note

The selection of the retrospective software tool is important for the use of these retro templates and techniques in large teams. The Echometer software tool is particularly recommended here.

Retrospectives are suitable for any team that wants to improve its collaboration - regardless of whether it works agilely or not.

Retros are particularly helpful when:

• regular collaboration and common goals exist
• Teams can talk openly about problems or want to work on them
• there is a desire to make processes visible and improve them

New teams can also carry out retros. A safe environment and clear moderation are crucial.

The success of retrospectives is reflected in the fact that agreed measures are implemented and measurable improvements are achieved. In addition to productivity indicators (which should be treated with caution), teams use, for example, the tracking of action items, trends on feedback scales in team health check / pulse check surveys.

Typically, there are five phases for retrospectives: Set the stage, Gather data, Generate insights, Decide what to do, and Close. The exact process can vary, but it should always lead to concrete action items. In addition to the classic 5 phases of retrospectives, there is also the Double Diamond model for the phases of retrospectives , which provides facilitators of retrospectives with a more intuitive image for successful and result-oriented facilitation.

Retrospectives help teams identify problems early, understand root causes, and collectively decide on improvements. This increases transparency, team satisfaction, and the quality of results.

No, you do not need to log in to Echometer or register to test the Retro Board and Retro Tool in Echometer.

You can try out Echometer’s Retro Board via the following link without logging in: Try a Practice Round

A retrospective is a structured team meeting in which a team reflects on the collaboration of a past period and agrees on concrete improvements. It takes place regularly (e.g. after a sprint or project section) and serves for continuous improvement.

One of the greatest strengths of the Echometer Retro Tool are the various templates for retrospectives, which can be used as patterns for the creative design of your own retrospectives.

Here is a short list of the samples as an insight into the retrospective templates:

• Happy, Wondering, Sad
• Three Little Pigs
• Team Morale Health Check
• Easter and Christmas retrospective templates
• DORA Retrospective
• 5 agile values Health Check
• Spotify Squad Health Check Radar
• Psychological safety Health Check
• DORA Retrospective
• Unique retrospective templates such as the “7 Dwarfs Retrospective” or the “Football Retrospective”

If you are interested in the Retrospective Tools templates, take a quick look at the tool: Echometer Retro Templates & Templates

A retrospective typically takes place in the following phases:

1. Icebreaker: short Q&A session or activity to get you started
2. Collect feedback (covert brainstorming)
3. Collect findings: So present, group and prioritize the feedback
4. Decide on measures: As concrete improvements as possible that can be implemented in the coming weeks
5. Conclusion: Summary and short check-out of the participants

Special features of the retrospective process in Echometer:

• Feedback can also be obtained in advance of the retrospective via a survey. On the one hand, this saves time during the retrospective and, at the same time, all participants can think about it in advance and formulate their feedback at their leisure, which can improve the quality of the retrospective.
• In Echometer, there is also the step “Action Review”. Here, the team reviews all open actions from previous retrospectives, adjusts the status of the actions and comments on them.
• When the retrospective is completed in Echometer, the tool automatically collects the “ROTI” (Return On Time Invested), giving you a quantitative basis for analyzing the effectiveness of your retrospectives over time.

A retrospective typically takes place at the team level. Usually, such agile teams have at least 3 members and up to 10 members. So all team members participate in the retrospective - regardless of the respective role of the team members within the team.

Whether the team leader counts as a team member depends on the context and must ultimately be decided by the team itself. The more involved team leaders are in the team’s day-to-day work, the more sense it makes for them to also take part in the team’s retrospectives.

A moderator should be appointed to ensure that the process runs as smoothly and efficiently as possible. This task can be performed by the Scrum Master, for example, but also by another team member. You may also simply rotate the moderation role within the team – everyone takes turns in a certain order.

Especially for teams with little or no experience of retrospectives, care should be taken to avoid the following mistakes:

• Mistake no. 1: Retrospective as a chat meeting. Not all feedback in a retrospective needs to be discussed. Only the topics that have been prioritized together deserve extra attention. All discussions about details before the voting should therefore be moderated and postponed until after the voting.
• Mistake no. 2: Retrospective as a blame game. The retrospective is not there to shift responsibility or blame others for negative events or developments. Improving the status quo is in the hands of all team members!
• Mistake no. 3: Retrospective as a gripe box. Retrospectives are not just about noting what is not working well. Most of the energy should be focused on thinking ahead and defining binding measures.

For the first retrospective, it is a good idea to use a dedicated retro tool for support. Echometer, with its intuitive and guided mode, is very well suited for inexperienced teams. You can try out a retrospective in Echometer here: https://my.echometerapp.com/retro-setup

Agile (team) retrospectives (or “retros” for short) are regular team workshops in which teams reflect on and improve their collaboration.

Retros offer teams the opportunity to reflect on current work results and, above all, their collaboration, communication and working methods in short, iterative (sprint) cycles (e.g. every 2 weeks).

In essence, the retro answers the following 3 questions:

• What has worked well in the last few weeks? These things should be continued or expanded as a team.
• What didn’t work out so well? These things should be improved or left out.
• What will we do differently from now on? In other words, record concrete measures.

Tools for retrospectives such as Echometer simplify and structure this process of reflection and improvement.