12 Steps to Running Retrospectives Like a Pro: Step 8

by Scrum Alliance, John McFadyen

Join Certified Scrum Trainer® John McFadyen for a 12-part video series exploring the scrum event known as the sprint retrospective. Throughout the series, he’ll share tips and tricks for creating impactful, engaging, and effective sprint retrospectives for your teams.

Tip eight is all about psychological safety. When the team feels psychologically safe, they can talk openly without repercussion. Team members can say things that may be difficult, but they’re valuable to the team’s learning and growth.

By feeling safe, team members are able to speak truth to power. If there’s any hierarchy on the team or with leaders, people aren’t afraid to say what’s on their minds.

There are people who are naturally shy on any team. As a scrum master, it’s your job to give them the space to speak up—if they want to. You never want to force people to speak, but you should create an environment where they feel safe sharing their ideas.

When the team is openly sharing, you learn why things are happening the way they are and you can find actionable ways to move forward. Without this level of open communication, assumptions are made, and that is risky!

As the team’s scrum master, you want to lead by example. Even if it feels risky to speak up, pretend it’s safe and fake it until you make it! With this approach, team members can observe what happens when someone takes a risk and voices concerns openly and honestly. It’s natural that other team members will follow your lead, so you’re creating a culture of openness and transparency.

You’ll have a really good retrospective conversation when people listen, act appropriately, and are able to speak up.

Key Takeaways:

Everyone on the team needs to feel safe to speak openly.
Transparent conversations are valuable to the team’s learning.
Give quieter team members space to speak, if they want to.
As a scrum master, lead the team by speaking openly yourself.

Need to watch any of the other videos in the series? Find the links below!

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Presenter(s)

Scrum Alliance

John McFadyen

John McFadyen is an Executive and Enterprise Agile Coach with proven experience working on some of the UK and Europe’s largest, most complex Agile Transformations. As a Certified Scrum Trainer, John brings a wealth of experience as an Agile coach, Agile practitioner and software developer into each of the 4 core courses he provides. Certified ScrumMaster Certified Scrum Product Owner Advanced Certified ScrumMaster Certified Scrum Professional ScrumMaster The war stories, the insights into successful Agile transformations and everything he has learned from coaching high-performance Agile teams combines to provide course delegates with a unique, compelling training experience that transforms as much as it empowers. John is passionate about cultivating high-performing Agile organisations that unleash people’s passion and creativity. As an Agile coach, John has worked with C-Suite level individuals on cultivating and embedding Business Agility within the DNA or large organisations. In addition to being an Agile coach and Certified Scrum Trainer, John is also a founding partner of Agile Centre. As an entrepreneur, John works at growing Agile capability with clients from around the world. Agile Centre has fast established itself as a pioneer in the cultivation and development of Agile capabilities within organisations great and small. John leverages his experience as an Agile coach, consultant and trainer to help organisations embed Agile values, mindsets and develop a high-performance culture of Business Agility. John is also deeply invested in growing the next generation of great Scrum Masters via the Agile Coaching Academy. An 18-month journey that helps practitioners move through an apprenticeship in Agile coaching through to journeyman and practising Agile coach. John is also an international keynote speaker, author and Business Agility mentor. Visit www.johnmcfadyen.com for more insights into John’s writing, thought leadership and mentorship.