remote:af teams spend two hours a month retrospecting on their work, optimising their system of work and reviewing the Remote Team Alliance.

"Retrospectives are special workshops where a team regularly steps back, examines the way they work and identifies ways they can improve.” - Esther Derby, author of Agile Retrospectives

- Making Good Teams Great

Review data

We collectively review the data since the last retrospective; if this is the first retrospective then the team uses data captured since the launch.

To maximise the value of the retrospective we capture all data through automation or asynchronously. Use the day/days in the lead up to the retro for the team to post up retro item. Then when the retro begins everyone can jump straight into discussing the feedback (this maximises synchronous communication time with the team).

Each person attending the retrospective has the opportunity to contribute observations or insights based on the data available. We look at four types of data during the retrospective;

• Feedback from customers and stakeholder captured in the review
• Measures used to track work (e.g. throughput, lead time, cycle time)
• Experiential feedback shared by the team
• Improvement Actions Results from the last retrospective

Improvement actions

The team agrees on improvement actions to take forward until the next team retrospective. Improvement actions are objectively measurable, either as a binary or with metrics. If it’s not practicable to include improvement actions in the team’s backlog then they are added as actions with due dates to the Remote Team Alliance.

Good Retro formats to Try Remotely