Looking for advice:
We’re about to go into our next retrospective and I’m stumped for ideas.
A little background: we’re a remote, distributed team that’s both new and have been proceeding very well for the most part. I usually facilitate the retro on Miro as it helps give a voice to the quiet members.
This past sprint, the team overcommitted. Whereas we delivered value and completed the sprint goal, it was a rough go at it and I can see the burn out on the team, and I can see this a dangerous path to continue on.
I really want to bring this burn out to light to see what we can do the next sprint to meet our goals without stretching ourselves thin. I worry they’re putting their health at stake for the sake.
How would you go about this?
Thank you all
I probably wouldn’t. Or rather, it’s the team’s retrospective, not yours – they should be the ones surfacing stuff to work on. A simple “what went well, what could go better? format will get you there.
Teams have bad Sprints. Sometimes a few bad Sprints. It’s okay.
It might be a better topic to unpack with individuals on a 1-on-1 basis first, to find out how they are doing and whether as individuals they are okay or struggling a bit.
I guess the other thing is how you collect data to help the team to understand what they can commit to, and why this Sprint was a struggle. Without that, it’s kind of hard for them to be objective or unpack things.
My counsel would be to wait to see if this is a pattern, or a one off, and whether they raise it or not. Don’t rush to the panic button….