What is Retrospective in Agile Scrum?

In Agile Scrum, the Retrospective is an important event and one of the four Sprint ceremonies that occurs at the end of a Sprint. The Sprint Retrospective aims to reflect, review, and enhance the processes and tools and prepare for the upcoming Sprint.

1. The Sprint Retrospective is the final event of a Sprint cycle which concludes the Sprint.
2. The purpose of this event is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness.
3. This event is timeboxed to a maximum of 3 hours for a one-month Sprint.
4. The event could be shorter for shorter Sprints.
5. The Retrospective event includes the entire Scrum Team including Scrum Master, Product Owner, and Development Team.

During the Sprint Retrospective event, the Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went about individual team members, the team interactions, the processes and tools used, and the Definition of Done. All team members discuss the below 3 key elements as the key points of discussion during this event:

1. What went well during the Sprint.
2. The problems or issues encountered.
3. What are the process improvements required?

At the end of the Retrospective event, the Scrum team reflects upon the entire process that happened during the previous Sprint and decides upon the plan of actionable items to be implemented in the next Sprint.

In Agile Scrum, 4 events occur in a Sprint. The Retrospective meeting is the last event that occurs at the end of a Sprint. This event offers the Scrum Team a dedicated time to reflect on the Sprint completed and fine-tune the process for the next Sprint planned. This article discusses the Retrospective in Agile and its’ Importance.