YDS: How Should a Scrum Master Facilitate Their First Retrospective?

How Should a Scrum Master Facilitate Their First Retrospective? Let's explore the options this situation presents. All of this and more are discussed in today's episode of Your Daily Scrum with Todd Miller and Ryan Ripley.
What do you think? Let us know in the comments!
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[@madzero0]

The biggest mistake I made in the beginning was choosing a different format every retro. It needed to be special and fun. And then I had a really busy sprint and didn’t have time to prepare something fancy. So we just sat down and talked about how we felt about the last sprint, what could be better, what was our biggest issue and what action we could do within our team to improve it. I wrote key words on post-its and put them on a flipover to keep things transparent. Nothing creative, just an honest talk. And it was the best retro we had since. In the previous retros I was just too focused on the format to feel the room and couldn’t really facilitate. So simple can be best.

[@detilium]

I did exactly the same. Luckily a team member mentioned this during a retro, and now we usually keep to the same format, until I see fit to change it up a bit. I'm with you: Simple can be best!

[@MarkBurville]

I really want to underline your comment Sven, thumbs up, simplicity is essential, 10th principle. This is the most effective way to have a retrospective, a proper timebox with simple questions and allowing the team to have real conversations. This is why I love the High Performance tree, it is inspiring for teams if you practice your own authentic metaphor. Add the Google story for high performance teams and you have a team captivated. What fruits do you want to get? What leaves need more sunlight? What roots need more nourishment? What one thing would you action for the next Sprint? Ryan and Todd's Fixing your Scrum gives brilliant ideas for Retrospectives and workshops on the Scrum Values, worth every dollar.

[@andreawalker7005]

Love the tip. Scrum Values.

[@paulcasanova4836]

Keep it simple - love it!

[@tfadams]

Another great video. This stood out to me and I'll be referring back to it as a refresher. "The art of facilitation is simplifying conversations".

[@tomaszgrygoruk5901]

RR, TM - I love the ideas of just 1 or 2 improvement during first retro and about the Scrum values, especially openness. And YESSSS- event shouldn't be boring - so the people want to come and participate in the future retros. I have joined to the existing team on 1st September and on the 2nd day of my work I led the Retro. This was a little bit stressful and from the other hand exiting experience. I asked myself if existing team understand me in the way I am expected, I didn't know how their worked earlier, I didn't know how they cooperate inside the team, I didn't know Team expectations towards the event. So I decided to ask just two questions : 1) How was your work in the previous Sprint? 2) What is the most important thing at this moment in time? (I have heard it in your show earlier - thanks a lot!!) That gave mi the possibility to get to know each other and learn a lot about the team. Great video I think it's very important for all who start work with new or existing team. I would add one more thing to what you said : "As a Scrum Master you should build an atmosphere of trust and engagement". And you also show people in the team that you are also a human :).

[@chka3440]

Thanks for the comment and i am in a similar situation of starting with scrum events on 4th day in company. I want to know more about this point "2) What is the most important thing at this moment in time?" - Is it related to most important PBI's or any other thing ? It will be helpful if you can let me know what it is about.

[@tomaszgrygoruk5901]

@@chka3440 Hi its about anything which might be the most important including : PBI, technical problem, process item, knowing a product vision, relationships in the team. The purpose of the question is to get to know what people struggle with at the moment and meet each other.

[@chka3440]

@@tomaszgrygoruk5901 Understood. Thanks for explaining it in detail.

[@dcn2376]

Good video as I'm hopefully interviewing for my first sm job within my firm where there will be a facilitation element. Gonna work with this 100%

[@AgileforHumans]

Awesome good luck!

[@robertodanieles967]

If you're remote, make sure the tooling you're using is smooth. A physical whiteboard has way less scope to be clunky than a remote one. Pick a good app for the purpose. I did my first facilitating session on Friday and the tooling could have been better! That's one action to take from the retro :D

[@tomaszniemiec]

Interesting question. Hmmm. I would say that...it depends :D But for real, a lot depends on the team shape, maturity and general understanding of things alike continues improvement or Agile/Scrum. Based on that "research" I would consider the actions to take and adjust the level of facilitation on the retro. Cynefin applied. On the other hand I don't see a problem with refreshing the concept, goal and "rules" of a healthy retrospective, either at start or from time to time.

[@tomaszniemiec]

Good advices for newcomers and where to start. What I would add it so experiment with the retro activities. There are many ways we can have a retrospective, BUT IT IS CRUCIAL to adapt the retrospective based on team observation and the "flow" of the retrospectives. An example I always use is the team who finds impediments only outside them. It is good to change the retrospective into a "try walking in their shoes" retro. So change it up, but not to often, adaptive to the team and when it makes sense.

[@NinV_]

Hi! what do you suggest when organizations put scrum or agile related certificates as a step for leveling along scrum masters’ promotion path? I do think certificates eliminate people’s motivation for real work and it becomes just a paper for promotion while reality might be different: different needs for teams, different challenges across the org. and their improvement rather than having paper. Though you see that if you pass, for instance, PSM II you can now be a step forward in comparison with the other person who did not take/pass the same certificate but has lot of practical impact done. “Sad but true”

[@abdallahahmed2517]

Hi my name is Abdallah, well i started to work for a small startup with big vision And my role is to be a scrum master, and honestly i haven't done something like this before, so any tips or videos you recommend for me to see before i start tracking you guys

[@AgileforHumans]

You're at the right place we have over 200 videos here :)