Agile/adaptive environments – retrospectives

Continuous improvement works both on the product level and the team level throughout all Agile environments; therefore, the retrospective is an essential piece of continuous improvement and the best practice. I'm sure many of you have a lessons-learned meeting at the end of the project or phase. You might have noticed that it's a tad too late at that point to change anything in the past. It's more an opportunity to commiserate, complain, sigh, and possibly have bagels. Food is an essential aspect of meetings, by the way. In a way, that is what a retrospective is, a lessons-learned meeting, with bagels more often than not. A retrospective is an opportunity for the team to spend time checking themselves before they wreck themselves in the next iteration. The team will inspect itself, the iteration, the way they executed the work, and create a plan for immediate improvements before the next iteration begins....