The retrospective is a familiar end-of-cycle exercise for product development teams who follow Agile methodology. Done right, it can be a highly impactful process with the potential to improve how teams collaborate, function, and innovate.
But all too often, teams skip this critical step of reflection in favor of moving on to the next “big” thing. And even for teams that host retros on a regular basis, valuable insights gleaned from these sessions often get deprioritized or forgotten altogether in order to meet closer deadlines.
While we’re all for finding more ways to reduce meeting fatigue, retros are one meeting that the most successful teams don’t skip — or take lightly. Here are some key strategies for hosting effective retrospectives, along with strategies to ensure your critical takeaways are successfully executed and integrated into ongoing work.
What is a retrospective and why are they important?
A retrospective is a meeting often set at the end of a sprint or major project milestone that provides teams with an opportunity to reflect. The main objective is to determine what worked, what didn’t, and what could be improved for future projects.
Effective retrospectives can offer teams major short- and long-term benefits, from critical bottleneck resolution to more optimized workflows that boost productivity. And there’s no single “right way” to host one. In fact, the most effective retro framework a team can use depends largely on individual dynamics and objectives.
| 💡 Miro user tip: Looking for a good place to start? You’ll find hundreds of retro templates in the Miroverse to fit different needs. We’ve also hand-picked a few of our favorite retrospective templates here, with tips on how to choose! |
Selecting a template to work from and then reflecting on past work sounds simple enough, especially without the in-the-moment emotions and stressors that tend to get in the way of more objective thinking. The hard part often comes near the end and after the retro, when it’s time to translate and communicate those findings into actionable insights.
Teams that fail to implement key learnings from their retrospectives may see their performance and output stall. Or worse, teams may not fully realize all the ways their less-than-optimal workflows are holding them back in the first place.
5 steps to actionable retrospectives
Employees also want to know their ideas are being heard, and that their teams are willing to invest in continuous growth and improvement. Don’t put your team’s potential for innovation — or their morale — at risk. Here are five steps to help ensure your ideas don’t die post-retro.
1. Effective documentation
Whether you’re hosting your retrospective in-person, virtually, or as a hybrid experience, capturing those key findings and ideas for posterity is key. For in-person retros, assign a designated note-taker (typically the host) and someone to grab photos of the final outcomes to share with the team when sharing next steps.
You could also use a collaboration tool like Miro, which can be especially useful for virtual or blended retros because the documentation and sharing features are built into the experience. What’s more, it’s captured all in one place for easy recall and reference, and status updates.
| 💡Miro user tip: Infinite virtual whiteboard capabilities help facilitate a seamless and dynamic experience for users, allowing you to create as many frames as you need for limitless ideation and iteration. When you’re ready, Miro makes it easy to cluster and categorize sticky notes by keyword or sentiment. |
2. Prioritization and planning
Just as there’s no one single retro template to rule them all, there’s no one best way to prioritize your action items. Depending on the specific needs of your team, effective prioritization can mean rating tasks by impact, urgency, level of difficulty, and/or probability of completion. You can take a more democratic approach with dot voting, or use the specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals framework to help you determine what to tackle.
Whichever format you choose for prioritization, be sure that you also allot sufficient time and resources for integrating retro outcomes as a regular part of your sprint planning sessions. By dedicating the necessary resources and baking them into your planning process, you can increase the likelihood of following through and turning those improvements into ongoing habits.
3. Accountability and ownership
Once outcomes have been effectively prioritized, it’s time to delegate. Each and every task should be assigned to a team member or sub-team with clear, realistic deadlines. Clarify any questions of ownership or accountability during the retro so that everyone feels ready to hit the ground running with their action items.
It’s important, too, to schedule follow-ups for status updates on progress. Regular check-ins also provide opportunities for team members to surface and discuss any bottlenecks or blockers that may need to be resolved. Remember: Clear, open communication is key to keeping all team members on the same page about what and how work needs to get done.
| 💡Miro user tip: With Miro’s tool integrations, bulk conversion of sticky notes into Jira cards makes it easy to assign tasks to teammates and track them independently. Automatically receive updates when tasks get resolved by syncing your board with Jira, Azure, or Asana. |
4. Continuous feedback loop
Things change constantly. But it’s one thing to react and adjust to changes as they occur — and another to proactively anticipate and prepare for them. To effectively get ahead of larger issues before they escalate, establish continuous feedback loops whereby work is done, results and feedback are shared, and critical learning occurs.
This type of iterative approach uses that feedback to inform any necessary adjustments to retro action items, allowing teams to work more efficiently. Maintaining those open lines of two-way communication will also go a long way to creating a team culture of continuous feedback and improvement that lasts far beyond the retrospective.
5. Incorporating retrospective learnings into company culture
Building a culture of continuous improvement doesn’t happen overnight. It starts at the top, with supportive leaders who recognize the long-term value that regular retrospectives and the resulting actions can bring to the table. Even small shifts in mindset around retros as a critical business process can help normalize the practice over time.
Empower your team to adopt a growth mindset, where fear and judgment have no place and where failures are a necessity to enable learning. When you model the behavior yourself, you can show others that learning and making time to reflect isn’t just encouraged, but actively woven into your organizational fabric and values.
