With every sprint, your team accomplishes there are always things to learn along the way. One of the best parts about agile processes is having the constant ability to change things that aren’t working well. No matter how good a team is there are always things that can be improved.
Having sprint retrospective meetings is a great way to get everyone together to reflect on the last sprint and discuss how things went. There are many ways to run a sprint retrospective but one method that works well is conducting this as a start-stop-continue meeting. This is a simple but effective method where each team member can list out things that they would recommend the team start doing, stop doing or continue doing to improve future sprints. There are multiple ways to setup this meeting but it is good to designate three different areas in the room so people can start making recommendations.
To get everyone involved, hand out a stack of sticky notes to each team member at the meeting. There should be a time limit set for filling out the notes to ensure ample time for discussion. In the given slot of time team members should write sticky notes of anything they can think of that either worked well, didn't work so well or new things they want to try. As they fill out the notes they should stick them up in the corresponding categories designated in the room.
Once all notes are arranged on the walls the ScrumMaster can then consolidate the notes and group like things together. Multiple team members may have similar ideas or thoughts when going through this process so grouping things will help the discussion flow later and prevent similar topics being brought up multiple times.
When there is a general consensus for the items in each category it is time to vote. The voting can be done with a multi-point system. Each team member gets 3 points that can be split up between different items or used all as one item if it's something they feel strongly about it. You can adjust the number of points each person gets so it makes sense for your team.
When you setup for the next sprint make sure to keep these items top of mind. This will help iron out problems encountered in past sprints and will help your team agree on improvements to include in the future.