Do you dread going to work? Are interruptions from outside making progress difficult? Is improvement almost nil? Sprint Retrospectives are the tool to help with all of these issues, but what if they elicit frustrated groans and reluctance or, worse, resentment within your team? This presentations shows why we have those problems and points in the direction of The Cure

1. Retrospectives
Gone Bad
A Totally Scientific
Perspective
Mark Levison – Trying to be
Agile for over 20 years
https://agilepainrelief.com/

2. Yes we have a book –
at least it’s free 
Guide to Effective Retrospectives
https://agilepainrelief.com/guide-to-effective-agile-
retrospectives

3. Ask questions in the chat as we go.

4. Totally Science
Based
Sarcasm Alert

5. Data source #1: Twitter Survey
#Retrospectives gone bad - what are your top reasons?

6. Data source #2: LinkedIn Survey
What are your top reasons for #Bad #Failed Retrospectives

7. We need our own polls
• Join at www.menti.com 6725 3784
• Please ignore menti Q&A function I
will only see Zoom

8. Mentimeter - Interactive Presentations

9. Data source #3: random comments from
friends
• Not solving real root causes. Just swatting at flies each Sprint. – John
Miller
• The Product Owner, Scrum Master, Team Lead or manager dictating
the topics of discussion and the solutions. – Alan Daley
• Teams conclude they have no influence on (let alone direction for)
continuous improvement… - Greg Tutunjian
• Lack of commitment, consequence, and follow-through – Joseph
Pelrine

10. Your Retro Pain Points?
• Join at www.menti.com 6725 3784
• Please ignore menti Q&A function I
will only see Zoom

11. • Flip screen to display

12. Top 10
Retrospective Sins
Based on Years of Experience

13. Don’t Panic
The Cure comes afterwards

14. Boring, Repetitive

15. All Talk, No Action
Action

16. Wishful Thinking
• Aka: Vague Actions or Improvements

17. Failure to Review Past Improvements
Last Month’s Improvements

18. Heroes

19. Perennial
Problems

20. Managers in the
Room

21. Rushed Retro

22. The Dominator

23. Other Reasons?
• Share in the chat

24. The Cure
Or Improvements

25. Establish Simple
Ground Rules with
the Team
Respect self and others
Silence is okay
Parking Lot is our friend
Explain your reasoning and
intent

26. Favour Systemic Fixes over
Quick Fixes

27. • Sailboat Retro picture
Switch it up

28. Facilitation Skills
“The facilitator’s job is to
support everyone to do their
best thinking. To do this, the
facilitator encourages full
participation, promotes mutual
understanding, and cultivates
shared responsibility.” Sam Kaner

29. Decision
Making
Protocols

30. Another
Decision-
Making Tool

31. Concrete Actions
• Long term [Goal] now [Action]
[Reduce Average Cycle Time getting Development to
“Done” sooner]
to a [Limit the Work in the “Development in Progress”
column to 4 items at a time]

32. Actions In
Sprint

33. Ladder of
Inference

34. Get Real
Data

36. Morale is Data

37. Experiments Trump Actions

39. Review Your Experiments

40. No Magic

41. References
Retrospectives
 Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great by Diana Larsen and Esther Derby
 The Retrospective Handbook - A guide for agile teams by Patrick Kau
 FunRetrospectives: activities and ideas for making agile retrospectives more engaging by Taina Caetano and
Paulo Caroli
 Fifty Quick Ideas To Improve Your Retrospectives by Ben Williams and Tom Roden
 Retrospectives for everyone – Powerful metaphors for effective retrospectives by Madhavi Ledalla. Most
interesting and invigorating list of activities I’ve seen in a while.
 The Guide to Effective Retrospectives: https://agilepainrelief.com/guide-to-effective-agile-retrospectives
 https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/sprint-retrospective

42. More References
Facilitation
 Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders by Jean Tabaka
 Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner
 "The Ultimate Guide to Agile Retrospectives: Facilitating Open Discussion” by Retrium (online source)
 https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/facilitation
Metrics
• Software Development Metrics by David Nicolette
• Actionable Agile Metrics by Daniel Vacanti
• When Will It be Done? by Daniel Vacanti
• https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/cumulative-flow-diagram and
https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/metrics-and-measurement

43. Yet More…
Systems Thinking
 Collaboration Explained: Facilitation Skills for Software Project Leaders by Jean
Tabaka
 https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/systems-thinking
 https://agilepainrelief.com/blog/scrum-anti-patterns.html (Systems Thinking
Applied)
Improvement Experiments
• Improvement Stories: https://innovel.net/improve-measurably-with-
improvement-stories/
• A3 Experiment Template: https://www.agendashift.com/resources/experiment-
a3
• https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary/improvement-experiments

44. World’s Largest Agile reference library
https://agilepainrelief.com/glossary

45. Want More? Download
the Free eBook
New Guide to Effective Retrospectives
https://agilepainrelief.com/guide-to-effective-
agile-retrospectives
The book includes a followup series of emails
designed to prompt you to take action.