taking part, in an observer role, in one such meeting is the best way to ascertain the use of this practice.Identical issues coming up at each retrospective, without measurable improvement over time, may signal that the retrospective has become an empty ritual.One or two improvement ideas per iteration retrospective may well be enough. An effective retrospective will normally result in decisions, leading to action items it’s a mistake to have too few (there is always room for improvement) or too many (it would be impractical to address “all” issues in the next iteration).Poor execution, either from the usual causes of bad meetings (lack of preparation, tardiness, inattention) or from causes specific to this format (lack of trust and safety, taboo topics), will result in the practice being discredited, even though a vast majority of the Agile community views it as valuable. Being an all-hands meeting, a retrospective comes at a significant cost in person-hours.The facilitator is responsible for creating the conditions of mutual trust this may require taking into accounts such factors as hierarchical relationships, the presence of a manager for instance may inhibit discussion of performance issues. On the other hand, an effective retrospective requires that each participant feel comfortable speaking up.It will not be useful if it devolves into a verbal joust, or a whining session. A retrospective is intended to reveal facts or feelings which have measurable effects on the team’s performance, and to construct ideas for improvement based on these observations.The term “reflection workshop” from Alistair Cockburn is encountered less often, though it appears to have influenced the Agile Manifesto’s wording of the corresponding principle. This is also known as the “sprint retrospective”, or “iteration retrospective”, often abbreviated, e.g. The term “retrospective”, popularized by Norm Kerth (see below), has gained favor in the Agile community over better known ones such as “debriefing” or “post-mortem”, for its more positive connotations. One important reason to use a facilitated format is to give all team members an opportunity to speak up. Several distinct formats have been described, depending in large part on the time set aside for the meeting, typically between one and three hours. This is often a facilitated meeting following a set format. The team meets regularly, usually adhering to the rhythm of its iterations, to explicitly reflect on the most significant events to have occurred since the previous such meeting, and take decisions aiming at remediation or improvement.

Define retrospective