Sprint Retrospective in Remote Teams using Trello
Came 2020 and the pandemic, teams are now home bound to still work on the Agile Projects.
So when it comes to the Sprint Retrospective and how to make it more interactive and still keep the lively discussion going on as you are in the real boardroom.
At YolBe, we quickly adopted Trello Board to manage our Sprint Retrospective ceremony.
Here is what we do and you could follow the same.
Create the Trello Board
Create a New Trello Board, browse through the `Engineering-IT` templates, you will find the `Sprint Retrospective` template, here is the link to this template https://trello.com/templates/engineering/sprint-retrospectives-hkaQsLWx
Now create your own board from this template, Name your board whatever you prefer, I usually name it based on the format ‘Retrospective, Quarter Sprint and Year ’ e.g. Retrospective Q1 Sprint 2 2022.
Make sure to uncheck the Keep Cards checkbox and only select Keep Template Cards.
Once the board is created, you will notice the fourth list, ‘Action Items’, which is actually no longer needed, because creating a Sprint Backlog item is no more required in the latest version of the Scrum Guide. However at YolBe we have adopted a new list , namely Focus On.
Invite your Scrum Team to the board
Once the board has been created, the whole team is now invited to join the board.
Our Sprint Retrospective sessions are pre-scheduled. When scheduling the session, make sure that every team member can join the meeting conveniently irrespective of their geographical location and different time zones.
While, everyone joins in a candid Google Meet session, we kick off our Sprint Retrospective Ceremony.
Starting the Session
Makes sure that every team member has access to the Trello Board.
Once the whole team is present and cheered up, First 15 minutes are spent on the board, we give 15 minutes to the team to create their own cards and provide the feedback necessary for the Retrospective.
I usually start the exercise by announcing, “Hey Guys, let’s spend 15 minutes on the board and write down your thoughts”
The Scrum Team identifies the most helpful changes to improve its effectiveness. — Scrum Guide
This is the most quiet 15 minutes in the while sprint, every team member goes back in time retrospectively, and Scrum Team now starts adding their cards to ‘What Went Well’, ‘Needs Improvement’ (Problem they faced/Solved/Not Solved), or ‘Questions’ they have.
Once the 15 minutes time-box is expired, we get into a round-robin open discussion on the cards which each team member has added or voted.
Every team member is given ample time to speak and share his/her feedback such that we are able to identify the most impactful improvement or identify the problem(s) to be addressed.
Finally,
At the end of the retrospective the most impactful improvement is brought to the ‘Focus On’ list so that it is visible to whole team and followed up through the next Sprint.
This is who our board usually looks like at the end of the ceremony.
Let me know who do you find it helpful for your Retrospective and how do you find ways to improvise it according to your own organization and team preferences.
