How to run effective post-project retros
A retro is a discussion that looks back at a project or set of tasks prioritized for a specific time. In a retro, project participants share lessons learned and discuss opportunities for improving work processes. Retros are a collaborative discussion, where everyone who participated in the project is welcome to share their observations and suggestions.
Retros help team member collaborate with others, and they help ensure we’re taking a moment to evaluate our work processes and spot ways to get better. The purpose of a retro is to learn, grow, and refine processes—not to share complaints, lay blame, or vent.
Project managers can build continuous learning into work processes by spotting opportunities to conduct a retro and organizing them when projects wrap up. It generally makes sense to hold a project retro when any one of these conditions is true:
A project included types of work that is new to any of the teams participating
A project spanned a long period of time
The folks who worked on this project are likely to work together again in future
The project was particularly complex
Here’s how you can plan and run an effective retro that helps your team learn and build trust.
How to run an effective retro
Organizing a retro gives the participating teams an opportunity to be heard, and it's critical to focus this feedback sharing on constructive discussion and opportunity for improvement. Here's a step by step approach to planning an executing an effective retro.
Prepare: Set goals for the call. What topics would you like to discuss? Is there a specific workflow or area you’d like to focus on? Are you seeking to develop or refine a repeatable process? You can use these goals to drive what type of questions you’ll ask folks during the meeting and in advance.
Gather data: Give folks an opportunity to participate by sharing feedback in a doc or survey prior to the meeting. This will help folks share thoughts in a considered way, ensure you can compile important points for live discussion, and allow folks to share feedback anonymously.
Make sure you have the right attendees: Sometimes retros can be derailed if one team is over-represented as a share of attendees. Try to ensure that teams are equitably represented by asking teams to work internally to collate information and send a designated number of team members to the call.
Meeting leadership: If the project has been contentious or difficult, consider appointing a neutral facilitator to lead the retro discussion.
Make shared agreements: Kick off the discussion by stating the goals for the call and asking everyone to affirm the core values for retros: All attendees did the best they could and made the best decisions they could with the information they had at the time. This helps remind folks of their shared humanity and encourage a constructive discussion.
Assign a note taker: It’s difficult to both lead and facilitate a call and take good notes on next steps. Ask a trusted colleague to take notes if you plan to facilitate the discussion.
Verify understanding: As you wrap up discussion of each topic, repeat back the learnings or action items you're hearing and who's owning any required tasks.
Share back: After the retro meeting, compile your data, learning, and action items to share transparently with the project team and any interested folks. And of course, follow through on any commitments you've made for improving project processes.
