In the context of agile development, a "retro" is short for "retrospective," a key ceremony in agile methodologies like Scrum.
A retrospective is a regular meeting held at the end of each sprint (iteration) where the development team reflects on their process and identifies opportunities for improvement.
Purpose:
Reflect on what went well during the sprint
Identify what didn't go well or could be improved
Create actionable items to improve the team's process
Duration: Usually 1-3 hours depending on sprint length
Participants: The entire development team, and sometimes stakeholders
Benefits:
Promotes team self-organization and ownership
Identifies process improvements
Builds team cohesion and communication
Enables continuous learning and adaptation
Lightweight Retro Template
Who was involved? List team members and stakeholders involved
Emoji summarizing the experience? (optional)
What was your favorite part of this experience?
What was your least favorite part of this experience?
What went well? What was easy? Helpful? Productive? Any highlights?
What could have gone better? What was hard? Confusing? Challenging? Any lowlights?
What advice would you give to future team leads?
What advice would you give to future team members?
What feedback would you give to DSAC?
What feedback would you give to CMS? HHS? Other Stakeholders?
What's next for this project or initiative?
Hot Air Balloon Retro Template
What has been giving us lift?
What has been dragging us down?
What is the sunshiney weather we've been enjoying?
What is the cloudy weather on the horizon?
Start/Stop/Continue Retro Template
What went well? What should we continue doing?
What didn't go well? What should we stop doing?
What should we do do differently? What should we try doing?
OSPO Guide
