agile-retrospective
When facilitating sprint retrospectives or team improvement sessions.
When & Why to Use This Skill
This Claude skill streamlines Agile sprint retrospectives and team improvement sessions by providing structured frameworks like Start/Stop/Continue and the 4Ls. It helps teams identify operational friction, celebrate successes, and transform qualitative feedback into concrete, accountable action items to boost sprint velocity and team morale.
Use Cases
- Facilitating structured bi-weekly Scrum retrospectives to identify process bottlenecks and new practices.
- Conducting project post-mortems using the 4Ls framework (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed) to capture deep insights.
- Converting vague team feedback into high-quality, SMART action items with assigned owners and deadlines.
- Providing guidance for new Scrum Masters or facilitators to avoid common retrospective anti-patterns like blame-shifting or lack of follow-up.
| name | agile-retrospective |
|---|---|
| description | When facilitating sprint retrospectives or team improvement sessions. |
| version | 1.0.0 |
| tokens | ~300 |
| confidence | high |
| - https | //www.scrum.org/resources/what-is-a-sprint-retrospective |
| last_validated | 2025-01-10 |
| next_review | 2025-01-24 |
| tags | [agile, retrospective, scrum, planning] |
When to Use
When facilitating sprint retrospectives or team improvement sessions.
Patterns
Start/Stop/Continue Format
## Sprint X Retrospective
### 🟢 START (new practices)
- [What should we begin doing?]
- [New tools, processes, habits]
### 🔴 STOP (remove friction)
- [What should we stop doing?]
- [What's not working?]
### 🟡 CONTINUE (keep doing)
- [What's working well?]
- [What should we keep?]
### 📋 Action Items
| Action | Owner | Due |
|--------|-------|-----|
| [specific action] | [name] | [date] |
4Ls Format (Alternative)
LIKED: What went well?
LEARNED: What did we learn?
LACKED: What was missing?
LONGED: What do we wish for?
Facilitation Tips
1. Timebox: 45-60 min max
2. Equal voice: everyone speaks
3. No blame: focus on process, not people
4. Action items: max 3, specific, owned
5. Follow-up: review last retro's actions first
Action Item Quality
❌ "Improve communication"
✅ "Daily 10min sync at 9am, owner: @lead, starts Monday"
❌ "Write more tests"
✅ "Add integration tests for auth module, owner: @dev, by Sprint end"
Anti-Patterns
- No action items (talk shop only)
- Too many action items (>3 = none done)
- Blame individuals instead of process
- Skip reviewing last sprint's actions
- Manager dominates discussion
Verification Checklist
- All team members contributed
- Max 3 action items
- Each action has owner + date
- Previous actions reviewed
- Notes documented