Running Effective Retrospectives

If you're looking to spice up your retro, here is a site with a great selection of techniques: http://www.funretrospectives.com/

I've gone from dreading the retrospective to looking forward to it with enthusiasm; mostly because I had never seen them run properly.

The Scrum format (what worked well, what didn't work, etc) just didn't do it for me. The meetings felt forced and awkward. It wasn't until I was involved in a retros with much more interactivity that it all clicked into place.

Teams that don't run regular retrospectives will suffer internal strife much more frequently than those that do. Even if every retro isn't 100% useful, just having it as a regular, un-skippable ceremony will go a long way toward team cohesion.

I've repeated the same retrospective items sprint over sprint without them being addressed. At one point I put a sticky up saying "this sticky will not be addressed." It's kind of sad.