Release Retrospective vs. Sprint Retrospective
Is the release retrospective similar in structure, nature and objective to a sprint retro?
You guessed it right, ideally not!
Sprints are typically for very short duration (1-2 weeks.) While release can range from weeks to few months. Hence the retros will be different.
- Sprint retros are meant for the team. While release retros should ideally also involve senior management, stakeholders (and potential customers.)
- Since release retros have a larger participation, safety checks becomes extremely important.
- We tend to rely more on anonymous data collection and voting compared to a sprint retro, which can be lot more open and casual.
- Sprint retros typically focus on process improvement. While release retros have a slightly broader scope. They not only focus on process, but also look at people and product aspects of the project.
- Sprint retros usually don’t focus much on risks identification. While one of the key output of the release retros is to identify and capture risks (esp. with the upcoming release.)
- Almost always I do a futurespective as part of my release retro, to flush out risks.
- Since sprint retros focus on a smaller duration, they can be pretty spontaneous without much preparation. However the release retros are covering a longer duration and in my experience, couple of hours of preparation time for the team members can really make the retro more productive. Generally as a facilitator of the retro, I would layout the timeline with major events, share it with the team before the retro, so they can come prepared with relevant data/stats.
- While I encourage a bit of emotional touch to the sprint retros, the release retros are more facts and data driven.
A typical sprint retrospective has the following stages/structure:
- Set the stage
- Prime directive (could be skipped)
- Gather data
- Timeline
- Seismograph
- Generate insights
- Clustering
- Voting
- Decide what to do
- quick action items
- Close
- Thanks and celebration
While with a release retrospective, we have the following stages:
- Pre-Retro
- Facilitator create the Timeline with major milestones of the release, key events, etc.
- Team collects data based on this initial timeline
- Quick (mostly 1:1) expectation setting meeting
- Set the stage
- Quick intro and context setting
- Prime directive
- Safety check
- Engagement Circle
- Gather data
- Further flush out the Timeline
- Seismograph
- Learning Matrix
- Mind Map
- Generate insights
- Affinity diagram
- Clustering
- Voting
- Decide what to do
- Open space discussions
- SMART action items
- Close
- Sugar Pill – participant share appreciation for team members by sharing with others
- Celebration – generally a release party
