There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. Turning the Sprint Retrospective into a Blame Game Retrospective demonstrates a Scrum team’s lack of skills and professionalism.
Join me and explore the reasons and the consequences of this Sprint Retrospective anti-pattern in 83 seconds.
🗞 Shall I notify you about articles like this one? Awesome! You can sign up here for the ‘Food for Agile Thought’ newsletter and join 31,000-plus other subscribers.
🎓 Join Stefan in one of his upcoming Professional Scrum training classes!
Join more than 170 peers from May 27-29, 2021, for the Virtual Agile Camp Berlin 2021, a live virtual Barcamp using open space technology principles and practices.
The Purpose of the Sprint Retrospective According to the Scrum Guide
The Sprint Retrospective reflects both a Scrum team’s ambition to continuously improve as well as its empowerment:
The purpose of the Sprint Retrospective is to plan ways to increase quality and effectiveness.
The Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went with regards to individuals, interactions, processes, tools, and their Definition of Done. Inspected elements often vary with the domain of work. Assumptions that led them astray are identified and their origins explored. The Scrum Team discusses what went well during the Sprint, what problems it encountered, and how those problems were (or were not) solved.
Source: Scrum Guide 2020.
Why Playing the Blame Game Retrospective Is an Indicator for the Scrum Team’s Professionalism
The Retrospective is an endless cycle of blame and finger-pointing. The point is that Scrum is a team sport: The team wins together; the team loses together. The blame game Retrospective hence documents the failure of the Scrum Master as the facilitator as well as the Scrum team’s lack of maturity and communication skills.
What can you do about it? Revisit the Scrum Values as a Scrum Team:
- Commitment, courage, focus, openness, and respect—without them, transparency, inspection, and adaptation cannot work their magic.
- If Scrum Values are a challenge, create, for example, a skill-radar for Scrum Values and visualize its development over time.
The Blame Game Retrospective — Conclusion
There are many ways in which a Sprint Retrospective can be a failure. Among those, the blame game, the finger-pointing, is the most obvious and challenging that requires the utmost attention from all team members to overcome.
What Sprint Retrospective anti-patterns have you observed? Please share them with us in the comments.
✋ Do Not Miss Out and Learn about Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns: Join the 9,000-plus Strong ‘Hands-on Agile’ Slack Team
I invite you to join the “Hands-on Agile” Slack team and enjoy the benefits of a fast-growing, vibrant community of agile practitioners from around the world.
If you like to join now all you have to do now is provide your credentials via this Google form, and I will sign you up. By the way, it’s free.
📖 The Blame Game Retrospective — Related Posts
21 Sprint Retrospective Anti-Patterns Impeding Scrum Teams
The Hardening Sprint Fallacy — Making Your Scrum Work #2
A Sprint Review without Stakeholders — Making Your Scrum Work #3
Three Wide-Spread Product Owner Failures in 6:09 Minutes—Making Your Scrum Work #5
Download the Scrum Anti-Patterns Guide for free.
