Hey everyone! I'm curious about how teams handle retrospectives during busy periods. I've been talking to a lot of teams lately, and many of them mention they skip their retros when things get hectic or have completely stopped doing them. I totally get it – some Fridays just feel too packed to fit in a retro. I'm wondering if this is a trend for your teams as well. Also, I'm toying with the idea of a lighter-weight retro format, like a quick Slackbot for a 2-minute async retro to gauge team morale. Would that be something you'd find valuable? Just exploring this concept and really interested in your thoughts!
4 Answers
No way! Who even has time for retros? Everything feels like it's on fire!
We do retros, but it really depends on what 'busy' means for us. If it's just regular workloads, we stick to our schedule. However, if something drastic happens, all meetings become optional, except for critical incident reviews. In those cases, it’s all hands on deck, and we only meet daily to deal with the urgent stuff.
In my experience, the whole point of a retrospective is to give the team a moment to reflect and improve their process. If you find yourself skipping them often, maybe it's worth reconsidering how you conduct them. A long meeting isn't always necessary; we don’t have strict schedules for retros. We discuss the process as issues arise, keeping it short and actionable. Cancelling retros might be fine if everything's working well, but if improvements are needed, it's crucial to maintain that space for discussion. Pulse surveys can be helpful but don’t always capture everything, and participation can be hit or miss.
Isn't there a place for short, ad-hoc retros on busy weeks? Something that gets the essence of a retro without taking too much time? Just throwing it out there!
I totally relate! It's hard to justify a meeting when your team feels like it's in chaos.