Product manager facilitates Retrospective? 10 Key Tips

Agile Teams are sometimes faced with the question: Should the product manager moderate the retrospective? If so, what needs to be considered in such a situation? As a trained psychologist and Scrum Master, I will give you a few tips today to help you master your situation.

In a situation where there is no dedicated scrum master and the product manager has to facilitate the agile retrospective, there are some considerations to take into account. Here are specific tips for this situation:

1. Clarify the role:

   • Explain at the beginning of the retrospective that you, as Product Manager, are taking on the role of moderator, but are not acting as a formal Scrum Master. Emphasize that the goal is to discuss constructive feedback and hold an open discussion. Possibly openly discuss possible risks and obstacles that could arise from the lack of a Scrum Master role in order to sensitize the team. 

2. Respect team autonomy:

   • Show respect for the team’s autonomy. Let them know that you are there as a facilitator to support the process, but that the decisions and actions will ultimately be made together.

3. Focus on the retrospective:

   • During the retrospective, focus entirely on moderation and try to comment less from the product manager’s perspective. If you do, actively announce it: “Now I’m stepping out of my role as moderator and into the role of product manager: I understand your criticism of our product vision. Perhaps we should record a measure to address this.”

4. Take on an active listening role:

   • Just like in any other retro, but maybe you’re less aware of it: actively listen and involve team members in the discussion, especially now that you’re breaking out of your product manager role. Make sure everyone has the opportunity to express their thoughts and encourage open and honest communication.

5. Flexibility in the choice of methods:

   • Be flexible in your choice of retrospective methods. Consider the preferences and dynamics of the team to create an effective and engaging session. For example, here are 50 interactive and fun retrospective methods that you are sure to enjoy: 50 retrospective ideas for beginners and professionals . 

6. Promote team empowerment:

   • Encourage the team to take responsibility and propose solutions for identified problems. This strengthens the empowerment of team members and promotes self-organization - something that one should probably always do in the Product Manager role.

1. Promote skills development:

   • Enable the team to develop its own “moderation skills” over time. This could mean that a team member gradually takes over the moderation or that the role rotates. In my experience, in a very mature team, there is a very balanced speaking time and moderation is hardly necessary anymore - especially if there is a good, structured retro tool.

2. Use visualization:

   • As a product manager, use visual aids such as whiteboards or digital tools to structure the discussion and record the results. This helps to increase transparency and better understand jointly developed solutions.

3. Track progress:

   • If you have to moderate several retrospectives: record which measures were derived from previous retrospectives and track how successfully they were implemented. This shows the team that their efforts are bearing fruit. Agile retrospective tools such as Echometer can also help you with this topic.

4. Draw attention to the positive:

   • In addition to identifying areas for improvement, it is important to recognize the positive aspects and successes. This helps to maintain the team’s motivation. So, as a product manager, you shouldn’t skip the question “What has gone well lately?”, even if it may seem tempting at times.

5. Include external perspectives:

   • Occasionally, external perspectives, such as the involvement of stakeholders or experts, can provide valuable insights and help to identify blind spots in the team.

6. Maintain documentation:

   • Keep a record of the results and discussions of the retrospectives, especially as a product manager, so that they can still be understood later. This enables the team to track progress over time.

7. Agile Use Health Checks:

   • Agile Health Checks, for example via surveys, can be a great way to get feedback from the team in a neutral way without influencing the team via questions. Echometer, for example, can help you with this retrospective form with the help of some templates.

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As you may have already noticed, many of the aspects mentioned here can be taken over or at least supported by a good retrospective tool. The retrospective and team development tool Echometer, for example, is specially designed for cases where your team does not have a dedicated full-time Scrum Master.

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.

Retros can be extremely powerful - if you manage to talk about the elephant in the room. Good tools can help you a lot with this!

Christian Heidemeyer, Psychologist & Scrum Master

In the agile world, a clear distribution of roles is crucial, especially when the product manager is supposed to moderate a retro and thus breaks out of his role. The moderator of the retrospective can use his expertise in agile project management to focus on team development - but often does not. Close cooperation with the team and following a few simple rules, based on the agile manifesto, create an optimal basis for the success of agile retrospectives, even as a product manager.

Finally, another reminder: If you would like to try out how it feels to further develop your team 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?

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