Professional Scrum with Team Foundation Server 2010

10

The Retrospective

WHAT'S IN THIS CHAPTER?

• Understanding practices related to retrospectives.
• How to use TFS to answer the three retrospective questions.

A retrospective takes place at the end of a sprint. It provides an opportunity for the team to reflect on what has gone well, what has gone poorly, and what the team wants to change. The retrospective is a key component of the inspect-and-adapt Agile framework.

Retrospectives give Scrum teams an opportunity to learn from their mistakes and successes. During a retrospective meeting, which generally lasts three hours, the team asks meta-questions about how effectively it is producing business value, with the intention of implementing changes that increase velocity and team health. A retrospective takes place at the end of a sprint. All members of the team, with the possible exception of the product owner, attend the retrospective.

A team will often generate a prioritized list of impediments and action items during a retrospective. This list typically contains two types of impediments: impediments that can be addressed entirely within the team, such as creating an automated build process, and impediments that must be addressed by the wider company, such as reducing the number of times the team is interrupted. The ScrumMaster takes any changes that require company involvement to the company.

This chapter describes common practices related to retrospectives and how the Team Foundation Server (TFS) Scrum template supports them. ...