Even good self-organising teams can face challenges with RETROSPECTIVES in how they are run and addressing issues that they discover.

The following are some of the most commonly experienced challenges with their suggested solutions:

• Apathy:  After a while, some Team members may consider that the RETROSPECTIVE is a waste of time:
• They have already discussed problems that are out of their CONTROL to resolve
• They have improved their process as best they can

Solutions:

The Team must devise a plan to attempt to resolve ‘external’ problems probably involving the Scrum Master as the Risks and Issues Manager

Although there may be parts of their process that are working ‘OK’, the Team should devise experiments to innovatively change some parts and review the changes at the next Retrospective

• Boring:  If all Retrospectives follow the same ‘sit around a table and discuss’ format, they will quickly become boring.  

Solution:  The Retrospective facilitator should change the format of the Retrospectives by using ‘games’ to elicit required information from the group; see Fun Retrospectives and Agile Retrospectives Ideas: Games For Your Next Retrospective for more ideas than a Retrospective facilitator could possibly use

All Talk, No Action:  During early transformation Retrospectives, the Team are likely to come up with many impediments; the list may seem daunting and the thought of discussing them all is de-motivating.  Also, although the impediments may be discussed and understood by all, there is no plan to resolve any of them

Solution: 

Timebox the DISCOVERY of impediments.  The Team members will, hopefully, only come up with their most important impediments

Treat the Impediments or Blocks List like a Product Backlog Before discussing any impediment, get the Team to order them in terms of Team importance Discuss only the top 2 or 3 impediments and produce plans to try to resolve them Every 2 or 3 days during the next Sprint, get the Team to state how the plans are going

The first item for the next Retrospective should be to discuss the result of the plans; removing the impediment if it has been RESOLVED or putting it back onto the Impediments List for consideration with the rest of the un-resolved and un-discussed impediments.