the big boss wants to come to the sprint retrospective

Well, what does the team think? ;-)

This is the kind of thing a Scrum Master should not accept without consulting the Scrum Team. In fact, it is not even within his powers to issue an invitation to anyone. That power leis with the whole Scrum Team. If they are okay with it and are able to communicate to the "Big Boss" that it is a one-time-only invitation, then the benefits might be worth it.

On the other hand, I'm not sure visiting a Retrospective helps anyone to understand Scrum better (unless they are explicitly looking to better understand the Sprint Retrospective event).

It depends a lot on the team and on the boss's personality.

Do the team have effective Sprint Reviews where they achieve most of what the Scrum Guide says should happen during that event?

If so, perhaps it'd be more effective for someone to attend the Review, rather than the Retrospective to learn more about Scrum.

Are you familiar with "the invisible gun effect"? One potential danger of having management in the Retrospective is that the team do not speak openly and so the manager sees a meeting where nothing relevant happens, and leaves with the impression that the Sprint Retrospective (perhaps Scrum as a whole) is a waste of time.

...perhaps it'd be more effective for someone to attend the Review, rather than the Retrospective to learn more about Scrum.

This would be a better option. The Product Owner may invite stakeholders to the Sprint Review at his or her discretion.

The Retrospective is for the Scrum Team only. Bear in mind that it would therefore cease to be representative of Scrum practice if others were to attend.

If I was Scrum Master in this situation, I would offer to coach a separate retrospective workshop at senior level. We’d look at what the higher-ups were doing over a given period in terms of organizational value streams and enabling product focus, evidence-based management, and incremental ways-of-working. Agility is not delegated.

I don't think Sprint retrospective event, is built for coaching the Scrum theory. This event for scrum team to inspect them self and the Scrum team will never be open in front of Big Boss. Then the event will be not more than a bla bla bla. Scrum Master should coaching the Big Boss in separated event or workshop. not even Sprint review event can help Big Boss to understand the Scrum framework and knowing it's strengths.

a sponsor of the project wants to come on one retrospective to understand better scrum... 

And what better way for a project sponsor to begin learning about Scrum, than to have the Scrum Master simply say "no" to the request, and then take time to explain the negative effects of non-Scrum Team attendance at a retrospective?

I would certainly approach such a request more diplomatically, to try and learn the underlying reasons for wanting to attend a Retrospective, what the project sponsor's understanding of Scrum is, and whether another Scrum ceremony could provide the needed Scrum education for the project sponsor.   

I would try to approach it as a discussion and/or a negotiation, with the intent to try and help the project sponsor as much as possible.   However, if the request turned into an ultimatum (i.e. - I want to attend the Retro, and that's that), then I would simply smile, tell the project sponsor that I could not honor his request, and let the chips fall where they may.

@Julian,

I'm not sure that I agree with the approach to leave it up to the Scrum Team to decide who to invite to the Retrospective.   The negative effects of non-Scrum Team attendance in a retro are well-known in the Scrum community, so I would not be in favor of any experiment that would permit such attendance.

Well, brilliant views have already been posted by masters. :)

I as a Scrum Master, would not accept BIG BOSS' request to attend a retrospective, because this ceremony is only for the team - to introspect on what went wrong and how it can be made right or achieved better. Whatever BIG BOSS wants to say, can be said in the review meeting. Having a 3rd party intrusion in the retrospective may result in one or many of the following - 

1. not-required audience and their additional views.

2. as many have mentioned, team would not be comfortable speaking up

3.it may also end up being a regular feature to have BIG BOSSes in retrospectives.

So it is clearly a no-no.

I'm not sure that I agree with the approach to leave it up to the Scrum Team to decide who to invite to the Retrospective.   The negative effects of non-Scrum Team attendance in a retro are well-known in the Scrum community, so I would not be in favor of any experiment that would permit such attendance.

Yes, upon re-reading the thread and re-thinking my approach, I came to the same conclusion. 

@renaud secq

Can you tell us something about this Retrospective? I'm very courius how the meeting was run

I agree that any intrusion in to the retrospective can be bad. If the team wants to have a "meeting" with the Big Boss to discuss the sprint that can be separate and still have the "team only retro". I also suggest that if the Big Boss is wanting to know how scrum retro works ask them to call their team/staff together and the scrum master lead them in a retro session.

Personally, I think we're overthinking this one a little.  If your Scrum transformation is derailed because of something that happens in one retrospective, then perhaps you have deeper issues to address. 

If you have a Big Boss curious and engaged in Scrum AND the team is ok with the one-time event AND there is proper HiPPo coaching, then go for it. All organizations should be so lucky.  

If it goes horribly, then it's a teaching moment of why we only have the Scrum Team in the Retro.  

Hi thanks, for all your comments ! 

@simon : you re totally right, i really think that "the invisible gun" would avoid the benefits of retrospective.

@Krzysztof  : we use squad health check retro

So i read that majority thinks it's an error to say yes to the boss... And i agree with.

i also understand people who thinks it can helps... But i thinks benefits are really too small. We loose a "real" retrospective, and it's a pity.



Also, another big point that surprises me. Our scrum master displays and share to all stakeholders all feedbacks from our retrospective. I know transparence is an essential key but i thought that what was told in retrospective was only for scrum team.



For me, if what it said in retro becomes totally public and if the boss begins to come in retro.

Retro is not anymore a retro.

The decisions are made public, as improvements in the next Sprint Backlog, but why having the meeting public ?

Transparency VS Indecency :-)

Our scrum master displays and share to all stakeholders all feedbacks from our retrospective.

Just a question, but how is this much different than having management or stakeholders attend the retrospective?   To use Simon's analogy, this is the same "invisible gun" that may very well stifle discussion among the Scrum Team.   

This may even be worse, since the Scrum Master is also carrying an invisible gun under the threat of documenting what was said in the retro for others to read.   This could completely undermine the Scrum Master's standing with the rest of the Scrum Team.

There is value in documenting experiments and improvement ideas identified in the retrospective, but actual discussions should be completely off-limits to anyone outside of the Scrum Team.

@Renaud   I've always coached it as "action items" from the Retro are transparent, but how the team arrived at them are not.  Similar to what Oliver said.  

I think the loaded gun theory was originally referring to bosses, but really anyone one in a leadership role can be an influencer.  I've had more challenges with senior developers creating a loaded gun effect more than any boss I've worked with.      

Ok If I understand, you say we should only share action identified on retrospective ? and that feedbacks from our squad health check is only for scrumteam ?



Thanks ;)