Are retrospectives an antipattern asks Steven. There are some interesting points raised there, and I certainly can see some antipatterns (some of which I have been guilty of, too). I don’t think it’s the retrospective per se that’s the antipattern, …

Why does it have to be either/or? They’re not mutually exclusive.

http://www.dancingmango.com/blog/2008/09/04/can-retrospectives-be-made-leaner/

Highly communicative, enlightened teams may not need a meeting because they will be in a constant state of identifying improvements and implementing them, in which case, the retrospective won’t add much.

For many teams and organizations, such enlightenment won’t be achieved, and they will benefit from a regular checkup on the process. Also, projects that are newly attempting an agile process should have a retrospective phase baked in the initial process blueprint, just to make sure they engage in the activity.

I would say, that it’s a smell when you do retrospectives too infrequently, say, a month or more (if anyone can’t remember the beginning of the period, too much time has passed). It’s also generally a smell when retrospective take a long time (say, more than an hour). There are either too many people or too many problems.Retrospectives should be frequent and short.

Somewhat unrelated to you post, I also believe that many retrospectives would benefit from being focused. Instead of the “What was Good/Bad? What should we change?” or similar general questions, a retrospective should ask specific questions. How can we deliver faster, cheaper, higher quality, better for our customers, etc?

More importantly doing this as a group is sometimes an essential part to gain a shared understanding of the problem and consequences. Without this, conversations break down into four different solutions as everyone perceives the problem differently.

RT @bellware: be careful of confusing retrospectives with interventions [link to post]

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However one must purify ones greatest delusion first.
Thus managers/leaders must help the team to purify their greatest delusion first.

Are retrospectives an antipattern? [link to post]

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Are retrospectives an antipattern? [link to post] – First I thought: No. Then it made me think. Then I though: Mostly not.

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@DianaOfPortland Re: [link to post] Clearly retrospectives aren’t the only time to think or talk about improvements… (cont)

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U R teasing me, right? RT @athought: Blogged: Are retrospectives an antipattern? [link to post]

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The problem I see is that we have way too few managers/leaders who have those skills.