Short retrospective - better fast than not at all
Retrospectives are one of the most important meetings for agile teams to reflect on and further develop their collaboration. The frequency usually varies between weekly and monthly, and there is a fixed block in the team’s calendar to ensure that this meeting will take place.
It can happen from time to time that the planned time window is not available due to external factors, such as ad-hoc appointments or deadlines. In these cases, we advocate doing a short retrospective rather than simply skipping it.
The Scrum Guide on the duration of a retrospective
The Scrum Guide suggests that you should allow 3 hours for a retrospective - with a one-month sprint rhythm. In practice, this time window is usually not available. In our experience, most teams block out between 60 and 120 minutes for their retrospectives.
💡 New analysis of 30,000 retrospectives
Short retrospectives with a duration between 30-45 minutes are even the ones with the best rating (8.5/10) by participants!
tips for short retrospectives
What can you do when things have to be fast? Here are our tips for a quick retrospective that will help you move forward.
Tip 1 for your short retrospective: DO NOT skip check-in
A common mistake is to simply skip the check-in as the first step and get straight to the point - after all, the productive part of the retrospective only comes after the check-in as a warm-up, right?
That’s a misconception. The check-in and “setting the stage” is an essential component of the retro, and is far too important to the process, that you should even think about skipping.
Those who do not check-in will have a hard time actively engaging the team during the process of the retrospective, as it is a prerequisite for productive discussions.
For example, the check-in can simply be a basic open question, that each team member answers after each other in 2 to 3 sentences. For example:
- What is your high- or lowlight from last week?
- On a scale of 0 for bad to 10 for great - how are you feeling right now?
Otherwise, there are of course various check-in generatorsthat you can use. The few minutes spent on a check-in are worth it, I promise.
Tip 2 for your short retrospective: collect feedback in advance
The data gathering phase of a retrospective is often the part that takes the most time - whether by sticking notes or with the support of online tools.
Here, teams who have collected feedback and topic suggestions beforehand are at a great advantage. This way, you can have all data ready for the retrospective and go straight to the topic discussion without needing to make time for individual brainstorming. For example, you could send out a survey before the retro, create a page in Jira where topics are collected, or simply ask for feedback via e-mail for the short retrospective.
As a tool for retros, on Echometer you can, for example, ask for retro feedback on both psychological behavior anchors and open questions (“Keep, Stop, Start” & Co.). The answers received are automatically compiled for the upcoming retrospective and ready for presentation in an interactive team development workshop.
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Solve this challengeTip 3 for your short retrospective: Discussing action items in breakout sessions
Another part of the retrospective is the discussion to derive measures. While the prioritization of topics should definitely be done together in the retrospective, the discussions about the definition of the measures can also be clarified in small groups outside the retrospective - for example in so-called breakout sessions.
If your team agrees on what the most important problems are at the moment, you can form a “task force” consisting of 2 or more people, who will then discuss the topics among themselves, then share the results with the rest of the team.
Measures like this can then be recorded in the retrospective as follows:
- Topic X: Klaus and Greta work out a concept for a solution and share it with the team before next Tuesday
- Topic Y: Gundula and Kevin discuss whether it might be worth pursuing solution Z and share their result with the team by tonight
Tip 4 for your short retrospective: Health Check Retros
So-called health check retros can also be a fun and valuable quick retro. You evaluate the quality of the sprint in numbers, quantitatively instead of qualitatively.
The procedure is as follows:
- Specific statements are presented (see below for examples).
- Each team member evaluates the statements briefly and concisely anonymously on a survey scale - how much do you agree from 1 to 7?
- Optional: The results are discussed. Positive and negative examples are collected that might explain the results. This part potentially takes a long time.
- Prioritization is now carried out, with each team member voting anonymously as to which of the statements require the greatest need for action.
- An action item is only put down for the statement that has the most votes - not the “second most voted” one - to save time.
The advantage of this methodology is that a lot can happen with just a few clicks. You get a feel for challenges without getting too bogged down in lengthy discussions. This can (if done correctly) save a lot of time and the retro is done after just 15 to 30 minutes.
It is important that the statements that are evaluated by the team are well selected. Two tips for this: Firstly, take a look at our free ‘team health check kit ’ which might give you some inspiration.
Secondly, you can use our Retrospective Tool Echometer to conduct various health check retro formats to carry out. Here, for example, is a Health Check Retro on the subject of team spirit - feel free to try it out:
Note: This retrospective format asks for agreement with the given Health Check items on a scale.
- Appreciation: My colleagues appreciate my contribution to the team.
- Team Spirit: There is a trusting working atmosphere in our team.
- Transparency: Everyone in my team knows who is currently working on what.
- Recovery & Breaks: I have enough room for breaks in which I can draw new energy.
- Meeting culture: Our meetings are well structured, yet leave room for creativity and new ideas.
- Support: In my team, each team member passes on their individual knowledge and experience.
Tip 5 for your short retrospective: try it Echometer some day
A good support to keep your retro short are good retro tools (see 7 best retro tools comparison ). They can take some of the work off your hands - incl. timeboxing or prioritization of feedback.
In particular, I want to mention the retrospective tool Echometer name, which I helped to develop myself. It combines insights from psychology with agile best practices to get the most out of team health checks & retros for team development.
We give you concrete tips in the tool on how to derive good measures - and it can be used both online remotely and offline (more about this here: the Best Retrospective Meeting Tool ).
You can use this button to quick open the ‘lean coffee’ retrospective and invite a team via a link (there are more than 30 other retrospectives ideas available):
When you get to the end of the retro, if you want to, you can create a free account to save your results.
If you would like to find out more beforehand or start a proper trial straight away - right here or start for free.
How short can you make a retrospective?
Using the aforementioned tips, a retrospective can be completed (in some individual cases) in about 30 minutes. Of course, this also depends on the choice of method. There are many retrospective methods that are not feasible in such a short time.
If the team attaches great importance to making the retrospectives as effective as possible, it can make sense to agree on a structured model in the team, according to which the retros are designed.
With Echometer, we provide a modular system that enables you to design varied retrospectives within a structured process. The process can of course also be designed flexibly if required - and also complements your retrospective with psychological know-how! Feel free to ask a free demo account if that sounds like something for you.
Nevertheless, keep in mind that you should always block at least 60 minutes in the calendar for the team retrospective (depending on the team size, more if necessary), even if it can occasionally be faster.
Final note
If it is clear in advance that not even the minimum recommended 60 minutes are possible: think about whether postponing the retrospective might be the better solution after all. Because: postponed is not abandoned ;-)
If you are searching for fun retrospective ideas, check out our post on 54 Kickass Retrospective Ideas for Agile Teams (including the Mario Kart Retro & the Team Morale Health Check).
By the way, one of the best methods of sustainably developing the agile mindset of team members is to implement an agile health check. Our free team health check kit can help you ask the right questions - just click through.
By the way, if you are still looking for a suitable retro board (with 60+ agile retrospective formats), this post can help you: Comparing the 6 best retrospective boards
"Many team members are afraid to speak up!"
Solve this challenge "We discover too many unexpected issues & bugs at a late stage!"
Solve this challenge "Why does it sometimes take me hours to prepare a simple retrospective?"
Solve this challenge
