What is Retrospective?
A retrospective (or "retro") is a regular meeting, typically held at the end of each sprint, where the team reflects on how they worked and how to improve. The focus is the process and collaboration, not the product itself.
A common structure asks: What went well? What didn't? What will we change? The output should be one or two concrete, owned action items — small experiments the team tries in the next sprint — rather than a long list of complaints. Psychological safety is essential; people must feel safe raising problems honestly.
For PMs, retrospectives are a feedback engine for the team's health. They surface friction (unclear requirements, too many interruptions, flaky tooling) early, and they signal to the team that continuous improvement is a shared responsibility.
Examples
- A retro reveals that vague acceptance criteria caused rework, so the team agrees to refine stories more thoroughly.
- The team adopts a "no meetings before 11am" experiment for one sprint after raising focus-time concerns.
Where PMs use this
Related terms
Scrum
A popular Agile framework that organizes work into fixed-length sprints with defined roles, events, and artifacts.
Sprint
A fixed, short period (typically 1–2 weeks) during which a Scrum team completes a set of committed work.
Daily Standup
A brief daily team sync to share progress, plans, and blockers — usually under 15 minutes.