Our retros never change anything
Run this on your last three. Count the uncomfortable moments, then count the changes that actually happened.
A retrospective is the one meeting a team holds purely to look backward. Cycle time tells you the team is slow. The retrospective is where the team works out why and decides what to do about it.
There is a simple test for whether you are running a real one or performing a ritual. Did anyone say something a little uncomfortable, and did the team actually do something about it before the next one. A team that only says what leadership wants to hear will hold a retrospective every week for years and never change anything.
This check is deliberately run on the last three rather than on how they usually go, because how they usually go is the story the team tells itself.
What you get
- Six questions scored across your last three retrospectives
- A scoring block for uncomfortable moments and changes that landed, and how to read a zero in either
- Two structural fixes to try before you try to facilitate better
- A short bank of questions that tend to surface the uncomfortable thing
- A commitment line with an owner and a date
Where should we send it?
One email with the worksheet. You can unsubscribe from anything else in one click.
On its way
Check your inbox. If it has not landed in a minute or two, look in promotions or spam, and add sam@startuppatterns.com to your contacts so the rest arrive.
Adapted from the Delivery chapter of The Mindful Product Company by Sam McAfee.