12 Steps to Running a Sprint Retrospective Like a Pro: Step 5

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.

Facilitating the conversation is the following tip for running your sprint retrospective like a pro! When you're the facilitator, you're not a passive bystander or a speaker—your job is to help the team actively. A trait of a good facilitator is being able to step outside of the conversation and be a guide.

It's important that your sprint retrospective has an agenda, as this is the facilitator’s tool for keeping the meeting on track and avoiding the team going down the rabbit hole with unrelated topics.

A good technique as a facilitator when you start to see this happening is asking the team, "Is this conversation helping us move forward?"

You don't have to be technical or a subject matter expert on the team's topic. Your expertise is in ensuring that the agenda items are achieved.

If you sense the conversation is getting derailed, ask the team again, "Have we gone off topic? Does this conversation have to happen now?" Very rarely do teams say that the conversation has to happen immediately.

Another key role of the facilitator is to make sure that everyone has an equal voice. Everyone who wants to speak should have the space to be listened to with respect. You also need to accept that some people don't want to talk, so don't force the issue.

At the end of the sprint retrospective, you want to make sure that people are making good decisions and have actions they own to improve how the team works together.

Key Takeaways:

As a facilitator, you need to listen more than speak
Come prepared with an agenda, and use that to stay on track
Make sure that everyone on the team has an equal voice

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.