Online Sprint Retrospective done easy

Takeaways:

• Choose a good tool. Something that is useful and easy, remembering that everyone will use it.
• Here at Devolute the responsibility for the retrospective is shared, 2 members of our team prepare it for the exchange of ideas.
• First prepare your team. Schedule in advance, explain how things will happen, tools you will use and steps. This will help the team to start thinkingabout the points and ideas.
• Release access to everyone on the tool to become familiar.
• Start with an ice breaker activity, to make people laugh a little, connect them and be present (in the virtual world it is much easier to be distracted). So that it doesn't get repetitive, look for a different activity at each event.

Prepare the session

Explain the objective, give the team a safe environment. Recognize the team's effort and make it clear that the goal is for them to work better as a team.

Here at Devolute we like the following phrase “We are meeting to discuss how we can be more effective as a team. Everyone here has the freedom to bring up the points they believe are important for us to be better. Regardlees what we discover, we understand and truly belive that everyone did the best job could, given what they knew up to the time, their skills and abilities, the resources available, and the situation at hand. 

Collection of topics

Now is the time to collect the information. 

First, what went well, that should be acknowledged. Then what didn't go so well and can be improved.

 It is best to give the team a deadline . Here we usually give 5 me, but it can be calibrated according to the course. 

At the end try to see if all the points raised are clear and that everyone understood. If you prefer you can do this data collection anonymously. 

This decision should be thought and discussed according to each team.Try to group the points into similar groups, such as tools, communication, process, team, etc.

Voting on topics

Now it's time for the vote. Each team member must vote on which points are priorities. See if there is any really serious point that even if it is not listed as a priority by the group you should also pay attention.

Discussion

Choose 2 or 3 of the highest priorities. Start the discussion by bringing ideas and actions. The facilitator has to try to get everyone to speak. All ideas must be heard. The important thing is that these actions are distributed by the group and it is not under the responsibility of the facilitator. Try to leave the retrospective with deadlines and responsible.

Wrapping up

Finally, acknowledge the team's effort and dedication to carry out the retrospective and strive for improvement on a daily basis. You can use a game or even a happy hour.