34
votes
Accepted
Is it a good idea to show a 'story points by developer' graph at retrospectives?
TLDR: The team should be a team.
We are not 'shamed' [...] developers don't want to look bad
See the problem here?
Whether or not your developers are being 'shamed', your developers are afraid of ...
- 14.8k
28
votes
Accepted
Should I ask my boss not to come to retrospectives?
It sounds like you have team members from high power distance cultures. People may not speak up when the boss is in the room because their values require them to listen and follow, not to advise or ...
- 396
20
votes
Accepted
How do I facilitate a first time Agile retrospective?
Awesome for you. The retrospective can be one of the most fun and informative "ceremonies" of agile.
So once you get the book, Diana is going to recommended never falling into a rut and tailoring ...
- 12.4k
16
votes
Manager no longer invited to the retrospectives
This is a tough situation.
Since the manager does work with the team on the delivery of product Increments, the manager is a member of the Development Team. Because of this, the manager should be a ...
- 18.7k
16
votes
Should I ask my boss not to come to retrospectives?
Analysis
There is a chilling effect when he is here. Am I overreacting? Should I just try to build up the confidence of the team? or should I ban my boss from the retrospective?
In my experience, ...
- 48.9k
14
votes
Is gauging a team's performance using scores assigned by other stakeholders valuable?
There is nothing wrong with this type of scoring. This type of customer confidence score is the same general idea as NPS and a multitude of other score. Whether or not it is healthy is largely ...
- 16.8k
13
votes
Accepted
Is gauging a team's performance using scores assigned by other stakeholders valuable?
Do other companies do this? Is it considered Agile? Can it show real insight?
No. No. No.
Why not? Because it's completely pointless. You said you have sprints. I guess they have tickets or stories ...
- 8,348
12
votes
Accepted
Should a Product Owner be present for all retrospectives?
Ideally the Product Owner will be present and will find the retrospective both interesting and rewarding.
However, if the Product Owner does not see their value in technical conversations then there ...
- 19k
12
votes
Accepted
Product Owner is requesting a "confidence check" for reaching the MVP - How to in a Scrum project?
While such a confidence check is nothing that you'd read about in Scrum Guide I don't see it as something that violates Scrum in any way. It is, in fact, answering a different question: the one about ...
- 19.9k
12
votes
Manager no longer invited to the retrospectives
There are two things to comment on here:
Can the Scrum Master exclude somebody from a Scrum ceremony?
Should the Scrum Master exclude somebody from a Scrum ceremony?
On the first question, a Scrum ...
- 19k
12
votes
Is it a good idea to show a 'story points by developer' graph at retrospectives?
TL;DR
Your organization is fundamentally misusing the story point metric, and also conflating story points with velocity (which is also being misused). Please stop doing those things before you ...
- 48.9k
11
votes
Accepted
Is is right if a team member moans about a 'bad performance' in retrospective?
Is is right if a team member moans about a 'bad performance' of another team member in retrospective?
No, that's not okay. Most SM's will explicitly call out the rules up front which will include "No ...
- 866
11
votes
What should a team do in the Sprint Retrospective when everything is going well?
Retrospectives: For Continuous Improvement
The misunderstanding of the retrospective as a place to fix problems is very common. However, the goal of the retrospective isn't just to discuss problems; ...
- 48.9k
11
votes
No retrospectives in software company - Is this a bad sign?
TL;DR: Maybe you're having a XY problem. Retros are a tool for a means, not a means in itself.
As yourself: Why are you asking around if the team has retros? Chances are, this question is a shortcut ...
- 8,539
11
votes
Agile Retrospective: Comments Anonymous?
The retrospectives I facilitate are not anonymous.
If a team member asked me to allow anonymous comments I would certainly do so. I would then try and investigate why psychological safety was so low ...
- 19k
10
votes
Accepted
What is the difference between facilitating a retrospective and leading one?
Facilitating a meeting is very different than leading a meeting. One focuses on leading the content of the meeting while the other focuses on the structure of the meeting...the facilitator being the ...
- 37k
10
votes
Accepted
Daily Standup, Demo, Retrospective - Mandatory? How?
There are two parts to the Scrum Master role:
Helping the team to resolve impediments
Ensuring that Scrum is being followed
The second part often gets neglected, but it is very important.
If the ...
- 19k
10
votes
Team needs a lot of time to deliver even the simplest stories- how to know why?
...a lot of time to deliver even the simplest stories
Only the development team knows what constitutes a simple story.
The time it takes to deliver a story depends on a lot of factors, including:
...
- 19k
9
votes
Accepted
Planning a quick retrospective
As you said the team was out of office for half of the sprint and there is little to show at the end of sprint so that means at least the team did good job in including the stories that can be ...
- 246
9
votes
Manager no longer invited to the retrospectives
If this manager is part of the team and codes and completes tickets in the team's sprint, then he needs to be at the retrospective meetings. Your Scrum Master screwed this one up by uninviting him.
...
- 14.5k
7
votes
Retrospective - too many small and random problems. Death by a thousand needles
Technical Debt is Often Invisible
The problem with technical debt isn't just that it's there. The bigger problem with such debt is that it becomes a "missing stair" that everyone steps around and ...
- 48.9k
7
votes
What is meant by "inspect people" in Scrum retrospective guide?
The key with retrospectives is to focus on potential improvements, not on problems.
As you rightly say, "John was not performing well during the sprint" is not great language. However, the team might ...
- 19k
7
votes
How should we implement and keep track of recurring or intangible retrospective action items?
What I find an effective way to keep those kinds of "behaviour change" actions under the attention of the team is to hang them next to the kanban board, large enough that they can be read from a ...
- 2,710
7
votes
How do you make the Teams Retrospective Actions visible and ensure they get attention throughout the Sprint?
Retrospective actions are a vital part of the Sprint work, so they should be agreed with PO and tracked as such.
You mentioned you use a Kanban board. Why not tracking each action as an item in the ...
- 8,539
7
votes
Is it a good idea to show a 'story points by developer' graph at retrospectives?
I worked in an organisation some years back that decided to try and do performance reviews based on the number of story points delivered by individual developers.
It was a complete disaster: the ...
- 19k
7
votes
Accepted
As a Scrum Master, how to speak to a developer about his delays?
Any suggestions ?
I'm sure there is an official Scrum answer and a project management answer. This is a common sense workplace answer: Don't bother.
That person is out of the door. They are there ...
- 8,348
6
votes
Accepted
How often and when should you change WIP limits?
There is no need to change WIP limit to match the actual capacity. You can monitor its changes and bring that information to a retrospective meeting and see what is going on.
It is fine to have lower ...
- 11.9k
6
votes
Planning a quick retrospective
A large part of the context is missing so I'd stick to your "requirements":
Explain why you're timeboxing
Focus on the actions to take, they should be very precise (long-term plans are not a 20 ...
- 1,011
6
votes
Planning a quick retrospective
I am a little unclear as to what your actual question is here. My advice though would be to have a clear goal/focus for the retro - probably something around accounting for capacity when half the team ...
- 184
6
votes
Accepted
Making Retrospectives Effective in a Long-Running Project
There are several things that you can do to spice up your retrospectives and keep getting value out of them:
Have somebody else facilitate the retrospective. E.g. a team members, Scrum master from ...
- 601
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