Weekly Retro

In our weekly retrospective meeting, everyone involved in the sprint should have the opportunity to share insights in the following areas:

• What went well
• What didn’t go well
• What did we learn

After each topic is shared, the meeting chair will review them, ask questions, and log actions to help improve future sprints and projects.

While the meeting is informal, some of the topics raised may address serious issues. One of the key goals of the retrospective is to provide team members with a space to express any concerns or frustrations from the week, whether they relate to coding challenges, system issues, or client interactions. 

Conversations often lead to new ideas and solutions, and any valuable insights will be followed up with tasks for the coming week. This helps ensure that lessons learned are integrated into our delivery practices.

The Retro Document

The retro document is a shared Google Doc with basic formatting and headings that outline the key discussion points. All team members can access this document and are expected to add bullet points under each section to ensure their points are addressed during the call.

This document can be found in Google Drive in the 'Operations' shared drive and the 'Weekly Retro' folder. The filename is usually: 

The retro document for the current week can be found in this folder and should be accessible well in advance of the meeting. This allows team members to add topics and notes a few days before the retro.

It is the project manager’s responsibility to pre-generate these documents on a monthly basis, ensuring that a list of documents is always available and ready to use.

Before the Meeting

At 4pm on Thursday a message will appear in Slack to remind team members that they can now begin to populate the Retro Doc for the next day. This gives team members adequate time to fill in the document before the meeting.

At 9:25am on Friday, a Slack reminder will prompt team members to review and update the retro document with their feedback and comments from the previous week. It’s important to complete this ahead of time so that the meeting can proceed efficiently without last-minute additions.

Meeting Length

The retrospective typically lasts around 90 minutes and starts at 9:45 a.m. on Friday. Full attendance is expected. However, the meeting’s length may vary depending on how the week has gone, the availability of team members, or any time-sensitive work that needs attention.

Cancelling the Retro

The weekly retro is sometimes cancelled due to pressing deadlines or high-priority client work. While retrospectives are vital to team productivity and reflection, they may be postponed when critical deliverables take precedence.

Retros may also be cancelled during holiday periods when team attendance is low.