Golden Rule No. 5 – Do sprint retrospectives and look for continual improvement

Continual improvement is a key part of agile, the mind-set should be that we can always do things better and so the end of sprint retrospective is an important opportunity for the team to discuss how things went and what could be improved. As the team will hold a retrospective after each sprint it’s easy to get into a kind of machine-like state where the team list the things that went well, not so well and suggestions for improvement and perhaps when it gets this mechanical the benefit isn’t so readily realized. So don’t be afraid to mix things up and try alternative formats for retrospectives, the atmosphere should be friendly, casual and open, otherwise it will be more difficult to get the team to speak freely. I’d also suggest that the team decide in the retrospective which suggestions should be taken on-board for the next sprint – it probably won’t be practical to adopt all – but the team should aim to adopt 1-3 suggestions otherwise they will develop a feeling of making suggestions that don’t get followed-up. Of course, suggestions that are tried and have a benefit should be continued into future sprints, don’t stop doing them if they work!