What mistakes should definitely be avoided during the first team retrospective?

Especially for teams with little or no experience of retrospectives, care should be taken to avoid the following mistakes:

  • Mistake no. 1: Retrospective as a chat meeting. Not all feedback in a retrospective needs to be discussed. Only the topics that have been prioritized together deserve extra attention. All discussions about details before the voting should therefore be moderated and postponed until after the voting.
  • Mistake no. 2: Retrospective as a blame game. The retrospective is not there to shift responsibility or blame others for negative events or developments. Improving the status quo is in the hands of all team members!
  • Mistake no. 3: Retrospective as a gripe box. Retrospectives are not just about noting what is not working well. Most of the energy should be focused on thinking ahead and defining binding measures.

For the first retrospective, it is a good idea to use a dedicated retro tool for support. Echometer, with its intuitive and guided mode, is very well suited for inexperienced teams. You can try out a retrospective in Echometer here: https://my.echometerapp.com/retro-setup

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