Why are retrospectives important?

If you want to get more action items from retrospectives, you need to do two things well: first, make enough relevant problems visible, and second, consciously open up the solution space in the team.

First collect problems that are worth solving

If your team has difficulty addressing problems openly, this is often the first bottleneck on the way to meaningful actions from the retrospective.

The following approaches will help you gain more insights in the “Gather Data” step:

• Conduct a survey before the retrospective: This gives individual team members more time to reflect on their work.
• Allow anonymous feedback: This can lower the barrier to speaking openly. At the same time, it reduces the pressure to formulate each piece of feedback perfectly.
• Use diverse and creative retrospective formats. If you only ever ask “What went well?” and “What went badly?”, it’s often not very stimulating. Varied formats help to avoid retro fatigue and increase participation (see also Retro fatigue ). To avoid this retro fatigue and keep the team’s engagement in the retro high, our list of retro formats is also helpful: Overview of creative retrospective methods

If you would like to further improve the moderation of your retro, take a look at our eBook (free of course): eBook on retro moderation

In the eBook you will find more tips on how to get better conversations and thus more good action items out of retrospectives.

Then widely open the solution space of possible action items

Once the retrospective has made a good selection of prioritized problems visible, the next step is to collect as many ideas as possible for potential measures.

Just as you shouldn’t prematurely evaluate feedback in the retro, you shouldn’t immediately evaluate action item ideas either. As a moderator, it makes sense to openly explore the solution space for each prioritized problem.

• Ask hypothetical “What if…” questions to stimulate creative ideas.
• Write down possible action items visibly so that the team can build on them and combine them.
• The more ideas you collect for a problem, the higher the chance that a really good next step will emerge from it in the end.
• For every idea for a measure, question what the underlying assumption is for the root cause of the problem. You can often visually group the ideas for measures according to the suspected root causes.

If you are also looking for concrete practical examples, you can find further reading here: Tips and examples for good measures from retrospectives

Consciously lower the hurdle for an action item

If your team can’t agree on the cause or the best solution for an issue, it’s often better not to leave the retro with a half-baked definition for an action item. Instead, the issue should become a clear follow-up step, for example: “Breakout Session on [Topic]”.

The breakout session is a good next step to further work on an important problem without prematurely committing to a concrete solution in the retrospective. The discussion in the retro already creates a good basis for this.

• The breakout session gives those directly involved more time to prepare their perspectives.
• The team doesn’t have to spend the entire retro time in an unproductive fundamental discussion where only a few can contribute.
• The result can be fed back to the team later, for example in the next retro or at an agreed time.

In the end, what’s important is not the perfect solution in the retro itself, but that you have a clear next step that really takes you forward.

If you also want to focus on the quality of the individual measures, read this FAQ entry: How do I get better action items in retrospectives?

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.

If you want to have better action items in the retrospective, three things in particular will help:

Make sure the action items are relevant to the team

• After the “Gather Data” step of the retro, conduct dot voting across all retro topics and focus the discussion of actions on the most frequently selected topics. As a rule, you should leave out topics without votes when discussing possible actions.
• Talk as little as possible about possible action items before prioritisation. If there are already ideas before the dot voting, write them down, but wait with the actual discussion until prioritisation has taken place.

See also: Phases of a Retrospective

When defining action items, concentrate on a concrete next step

• The measure of a retrospective can also be a small next step – even if it cannot definitively solve the problem yet.
• If there are differing opinions about the causes of a problem or the best solution, it is often better not to rush into a concrete measure. Instead, a separate breakout meeting with the people directly involved can be useful.
• This gives those involved more time to prepare their arguments and develop a solution together, without taking up the time of the entire team in the retrospective.
• Also, make sure that each measure has a clearly identifiable result that can be achieved by the next retro.

If you would like to further improve your moderation of retrospectives, our ebook is also worthwhile (free of course), in which you will find further tips on how to structure retrospectives in such a way that concrete action items really arise from discussions: eBook on Retro Facilitation

With actions in retrospectives: Less is more

• One to a maximum of three actions per retro is recommended. And even if there is only one action regularly, that is completely sufficient. With many problems, the added value of the retrospective simply lies in the fact that you have discussed a problem together as a team and it does not necessarily require any further action.
• If, on the other hand, you collect more than three measures, it is more likely that each individual measure will be less relevant to the team and will not be consistently pursued in the end.
• Also, a very good measure is better than three mediocre measures. So take enough time for each one.

These 3 tips are a very good start. For advanced users and those interested, here is some recommended further reading: Good action items from retrospectives .

For more variety in collaboration and more team engagement, it’s also worth taking a look at our list of retrospective formats: Creative retrospective ideas

If you mainly want to know how to get more concrete action items from retros, read this entry: How to get more actions out of retrospectives

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.

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

A good mental model for the phases of the retrospective is the “Double Diamond” model from Design Thinking: Retrospective phases according to Double Diamond

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.