Agile Retrospectives

2.2 Shaping the Goal for the Retrospective

A useful goal helps answer the question, what will achieve value for the time invested?

A useful goal provides a sense of why people are investing their time, without predetermining what actions or direction the team will take after the retrospective. A restrictive goal acts as a blinder. Choose a broad goal that leaves open possibilities for your team to think creatively about their experiences and discover the insights that are important to them. Unlike more general goals, here you want to avoid goals that define a specific measurable outcome. A goal such as “Determine how to persuade HR to eliminate performance appraisals” blocks consideration of other channels for action or other big issues facing your team.

Here’s a goal that’s broader but still inappropriate: “Determine what went wrong with testing.” A goal like this may send your team in the wrong direction or may open the door for blame.

Useful goals for retrospectives include the following:

• Find ways to improve our practices.

• Discover what we were doing well.

• Understand reasons behind missed targets.

• Find ways to improve our responsiveness to customers.

• Rebuild damaged relationships.

These are just examples. Consider your context, and work with your team to discover a goal that will help your team.

“Continuous process improvement” may work for a couple of iterations. After that, it’s stale. Switch to a different goal. After you’ve considered the context, ...