Welcome!

This is a resource for sharing retrospective plans, tips & tricks, tools and ideas to help us get the most out of our retrospectives. Retrospectives play a crucial role in software teams. It is time specifically put aside to reflect on how the team is performing and what can be done to improve.

"[...] a meeting held by a project team at the end of a project or process (often after a certain number of iterations) to discuss what was successful about the project or time period covered by that retrospective, what could be improved, and how to incorporate the successes and improvements in future iterations or projects." - Wikipedia

The process of retrospecting is at the heart of Scrum (Inspect and Adapt), eXtreme Programming (fix it when it breaks) and Lean Software Development (Kaizen or Continuous Improvement)

Contribute

If you've come up with a retrospective you think worked really well and is worth sharing, or have Tools or Tips & Tricks please share them here. You will have to request an account to do so, which will have to be approved by the administrator (@robbowley). Sorry for the bureaucracy but the wiki gets hammered by spam bots!

Sections

Retrospective Plans

A constantly evolving list of retrospective plans you could try for either specific situations or to simply mix things up to stop them going stale.

Tools

Smaller exercises which can be used on their own or as part of larger sessions. Examples of use may be to break the ice, gauge the temperature or remind people of significant events.

Tips & Tricks

Currently a random collection of quick tips to ensure you're getting the most from your retrospectives

Common Ailments & Cures

A list of common problems that have occurred with retrospectives and suggestions on how to deal with them.

Retrospective Surgery

A "retrospective for retrospectives". Used to gather a lot of the original content on this site.

External Resources

Links to other places you can find out about retrospectives.

Contact

This wiki was set up and is maintained by Rob Bowley. Please get in touch if you have any questions or thoughts on how to improve the wiki.