Common ailments & cures

A collection of common problems which occur with retrospectives and suggestions how to resolve them. Generated by running a Retrospective Surgery.

If you have an ailment that is not covered please add it at the bottom and hopefully someone will have an answer for you.

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Ailment: Actions not captured / No obvious record or review of previous retrospective findings

Cures:

• Review the actions from the previous retrospectives at the beginning of each retrospective.
• Capture/Document actions & follow up by Scrum Master
• Maintain backlog and have it visible for everybody in the team (e.g. on the Task Board)
• Focus on last sprint only
• Make someone responsible and accountable for each action.
• Put the actions somewhere visible in the team space for example to create team building spirit
• Recognize and deal with recurring actions
• Reduce actions to a manageable number
• More suggestions in Having Actions Done from Retrospectives

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Ailment: Too many actions

Cures:

• Apply velocity to actions, track progress and only take on what velocity dictates
• Try Plan of Action Retrospective Plan
• Focus on the vital few actions, only choose one action

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Ailment: Unjustified actions

Cures:

• Use root cause analysis
• Ensure actions are suggestions from the team and prioritised by them.
• Suggests Biased chair - see cures for that symptom

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Ailment: Not having the right people in the retrospective

Cures:

• Invite people early
• Pick a time that suits everyone
• Have separate retrospectives for tech team & wider team

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Ailment: Biased chair / Agenda hijacking

Cures:

• Feedback to chair and escalate if necessary
• Rotate chair
• Coach chair on “Agile” principles
• Let team choose an un-biased chair
• Recognize and deal with blaming

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Ailment: Lack of preparation / Forgetting what’s happened

Cures:

• Compensate in the meeting by having a good time line (Ed. help everyone remember what happened?)
• Prepare - personal/team log
• Remind participants to think of good and bad points
• Reminder before the meeting
• Use Retrospective Exercises from Retrospective Exercises Toolbox or Retr-O-Mat

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Ailment: People not speaking up/shy

Cures:

• Chair/facilitator needs to create the right environment
• Suggest box/amnesty
• Try different games which are more suited to retiring types
• Start the retrospective with a warm-up exercise to create an atmosphere where team members can be open and honest about what has happened

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Ailment: Retrospective actions and tips not shared with other teams

Cures:

• Rotating facilitators
• Shared retrospective blog
• Retrospective “lurking”
• Cross team collaboration needed
• Do a Retrospective of Retrospectives

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Ailment: People taking things personally

Cures:

• Refer to The Prime Directive

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Ailment: Voting system may result in valid issues not being addressed

Cures:

• Non-addressed issues get rolled over (& keep votes?)
• Themed retrospectives
• Encourage team to get on well so they empathise more with issues affecting minority
• Vary the retro format (e.g. no voting)

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Ailment: Suffering from 'Group Think'

Cures:

• Have a Devil's Advocate or Angel's Advocate
• Try De Bono's 6 Thinking Hats Retrospective
• Recognize and deal with passiveness

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Ailment: Lack of engagement

Cures:

• Try new plans or tips such as the ones on this wiki!

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Ailment: Too much focus on negatives

Cures:

• Try the Appreciative Retrospective Plan or a Strenghts based Retrospective

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General:

Facilitators need to know about retrospective smells: signals that something might be going wrong in your retrospective.