Explore

Scrum retrospective

Gather data

The second phase of the retrospective gives your team the chance to look back at your iteration to create a shared understanding of the events that shaped the present. The Gather Data phase is actually the only phase that fits the classical definition of the word retrospective(which literally means “looking back on or dealing with past events or situations”)!

Why it’s needed:

Gathering Data gives your team a chance to get on the same page about just what happened in an attempt to create a shared reality.

It can create alignment about what’s most important

Bringing data can help overcome disagreements about the most important issues that the team might face.

Types of Data To Bring

‍Objective (“Hard”) Data. Objective Data is any information that can be measured and verified.

Sprint Goal

Action items of previous sprint

Number of meetings

Number of stories completed

Number of stories completed as a percent of number of stories started

Number of new support requests

Throughput (# of work items finished per day)

Average cycle time

WIP (# of work items started but not finished)

Number of new defects introduced

Subjective (“Soft”) Data. Subjective Data includes personal opinions, feelings, and emotions on the team. Whereas Objective Data presents the facts, Subjective Data can reveal what your team thinks is important about the facts.

When did you feel motivated during the sprint? Unmotivated?

What was the best moment during the iteration? The worst?

How happy were you with the new practice of <x> (maybe you introduced a new git commit strategy or started pair programming)

Types of Data To avoid to Bring

1. Do not bring data that focuses on individual team members (at the detriment of others)

this data might be useful in other contexts, the retrospective should not be used to compare and contrast individual performance.

2. Do not collect more data than you need

Collecting and tracking data takes time and effort, so it’s important to track only the data you need and nothing more

3. Do not share data outside The Team without permission

Data can easily be abused and misused. Data that you collect for the retrospective should be for

The Team⁠

only.

Activity:

Mad Sad Glad
⁠
⁠

This popular retrospective technique helps highlight your team’s emotions during the iteration (bringing to light Subjective Data exclusively). To run Mad Sad Glad, simply setup three poster boards around the room titled Mad, Sad, and Glad. Ask everyone to privately write on sticky notes what they felt Mad about, what they felt Sad about, and what they felt Glad about. Once everyone is done brainstorming, have everyone place their sticky notes up on the board.

`Lean Coffee`⁠
⁠

⁠

It’s a way of constructing an agenda for the retrospective based on what the team collectively wants to discuss the most. Here is out it works:

Have everyone write down topics they want to discuss, one topic per sticky note

Have everyone put up all sticky notes onto a flipchart or whiteboard

Group together sticky notes that are similar enough that they should be discussed together

Have everyone dot vote on the topics they want to discuss the most

Prioritize the discussion based on the sticky notes that received the most votes

After 5 minutes of discussion on any topic, repeat voting to decide, whether to proceed with discussion of this topic or to switch to another one.

🤩More ideas are can be found on the page

Retromat “gather data”⁠

Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.

Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (

CtrlP

) instead.