Retrospectives – between making and breaking teams

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<yellow>Introduction</yellow>

In Agile, retrospectives are an essential element that creates cohesion and promotes team collaboration. This is a space solely meant for the members of the team, and for them alone – no project pressure, no judgment, no pointing fingers. The theory is clear and aims to create an environment where issues and ideas are discussed and dissected freely, so that every participant can ultimately identify their proverbial ‘comfort zone’ within the team’s ecosystem.

All of this sounds great and leaves little room for error; however, in practice, a retrospective meeting requires work from all sides to make the team feel like a cohesive unit. Nothing will come easy or even naturally, and it is important for the moderator of the meeting to encourage active participation, mediate discussions, and ensure that previously established rules are respected.

Having experienced both sides of the coin and participating in multiple variations of retrospectives, I managed to compile a series of patterns that, when paired with tough discussions, can only lead to dissent and discord:

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<yellow>Obstacles</yellow>

1. 'Depersonalization' –as the term suggests, team members who are not fully engaged in the retro will tend to ‘depersonalize’ and give standard, often unhelpful responses. They do not see themselves as individuals within the meeting, but rather only as positions in the team. This could also be a safety mechanism that ensures they are neither judged nor disregarded because of their ideas or beliefs.

2. Keeping it short – when team members do not see the usefulness of the Retro, they automatically tend to keep their answers and interventions short and concise. They are not open to debating a topic, and often contribute to the meeting out of a pure sense of obligation.

3. No space for others – in some teams, the retro dynamic can be dictated by one or two members, who lead and hijack all discussions. They are the loudest, the chattiest, and often the ones that shape the final decisions, whether the others are on board or not – if you don’t have space to complain, then you have nothing to complain about.

4. Taking it personally – many times, heated discussions about serious matters can feel like a direct attack. Involuntarily, instead of analyzing the problem, the team would sometimes navigate towards analyzing the person who caused the problem, unconsciously setting an equal sign between the two. This often triggers the fight-or-flight response, and neither of these is beneficial for the team as a collaborative entity.

These behaviors are just a few examples of the most common blockers that stunt growth and can seriously affect collaboration and, indirectly, project delivery.

So, what is to be done in order to overcome the obstacles that threaten to break the equilibrium of the team? Below are some useful tactics that can be employed to deal with the concerns above and can support a healthy work environment overall:

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<yellow>Solutions</yellow>

1. Shape identity – instead of ignoring the telltale signs of professional ‘depersonalization’, the best is to engage all team members from the start. A first small step could be creating together a set of rules and sticking to them. Each member should come up with something that they would like to enforce, in order for them to be able to actively participate in meetings – what do they need to show their interest? In addition, face-to-face sessions, or live sessions with cameras ON, could also promote a stronger sense of belonging and nurture the need to be both seen and heard.

2. Don’t be afraid to talk the talk – any input is valuable, and the more elaborate the response and intervention, the better issues can be understood and even solved. Oftentimes, details are essential for shaping and fruitfully concluding a discussion, and some thoughts that might have been dismissed as unimportant can actually prove to be exactly the missing pieces of the puzzle.

3. Don’t chatbox your way through the meeting – retros are for everyone, so give space and respect for all opinions. When a colleague is willing to intervene or present a topic, make sure they are heard and given space to express their thoughts without constant interruptions. Timeboxes could be a useful ally when trying to contain and limit prolonged interventions where only one voice is heard.

4. It’s not you, it’s the situation –many times when issues arise during the sprint, they are brought about in Retros and discussed thoroughly (which should happen, actually!). However, heated debates can easily slide towards a more personal level, and some colleagues could feel attacked by this. The most important rule to follow in this regard is to emphasize (again and again, until it becomes a habit) that every discussion should only cover the issue at hand and how to deal with situations like this in the future. Of course, the personal element is always there, under the surface, and if this is the actual source of the problem, then the issue must be addressed in a separate private discussion, so as to create a corrective environment without instilling shame and frustration.

<yellow>Conclusion</yellow>

All in all, retrospectives do not have universal recipes, and each team must create its own, personalized format. Nevertheless, the above obstacle-solution pairs are, more often than not, common and can make or break your team’s meeting. The secret is to spot and tackle them early on – your project will surely thank you for that!

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