Overview
In this post, we will learn the advantages of the Retrospective meetings in an Agile project. First, we will define Retrospective w.r.t Agile methodology and then talk about its advantages to the Scrum teams. Jira Confluence page.
What is a Retrospective?
A retrospective is a meeting, where the Scrum team brainstorms and discusses what went well and what could be improved in the last sprint of the Agile project, then set out some Action Items(AI).
Everyone in the team is expected to have an open mind during the retrospective meeting. It is not a place to blame or point fingers at if something didn’t work well in the last sprint. Everyone is also expected to take responsibility where it is due and make improvements where they can.
Advantages
- The retrospective is an opportunity for the Scrum team to openly discuss what went well during the Sprint that should continue and what areas need improvement.
- The main idea of Retrospective is for the scrum team to evolve from sprint to sprint moving forward.
- The output of the meeting is a compiled list of AI ( Action Items. ). The team decides on what action items to take on as goals for the next Sprint and issues that should be escalated.
- Retrospectives are an immensely powerful tool and are extremely useful in fostering an environment of continuous improvement.
Retrospective Templates
Improve the Agile project or the Sprint execution, by documenting the three things:
- Start Doing
- Stop Doing
- Keep Doing
Starfish Retrospective Template
In the Starfish Retrospective template, we track five things using this template. There are two additional tracking in this template:
- Start Doing
- Stop Doing
- Keep Doing
- Less Of(let’s do less of this )
- More of(let’s do more of this)
SMART action items
During the Sprint Retrospective, the Scrum team should identify SMART action items to improve the new sprint even better. SMART stands for:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Realistic
- Timebound
Jira Retrospective Confluence Page
Atlassian Jira Confluence provides a Retrospective Template. Template is a handy tool for the Scrum Mater to quick record the Action items.
On the Confluence Project Dashboard click on Create >> Retrospective
Alternatively, If we use the Jira tool for Agile project tracking, after closing a sprint, the tool would prompt to create a Retrospective Confluence page created to track the things that can be created using the Retrospective template.
Once done Publish the actions items so the it’s available for the team members.
