I have been working as a software consultant for more than 11 years. Because of that I am an eager supporter of lean principles and agile methods.
Retrospective (from Latin retrospectare, “look back”) generally means to take a look back at events that have already taken place. (Cut from wikipedia.)
Within software engineering it often means to have a review meeting with the whole project team at the end of a project or an iteration to discuss what was successful and what could be improved and also how to incorporate the experiences into future project and iterations. The retrospective can be done using different methods, and they could be formal or informal.
Questions to be answered during the retrospective should include:
- What did we do well?
- What did we learn?
- What should we do different the next time?
- What still puzzles us?
In this blog I do retrospectives of my own as a way to write about experiences from different projects that I have been in.
A retrospective gathering will be held in Germany this spring 3-7 April, 2006.
Read more:
“Project Retrospectives: A Handbook for Team Reviews”, by Norm Kerth
Retrospective Gathering 2006
www.retrospectives.com (Norm Kerth’s website)
Presentation about retrospectives
Another presentation about retrospectives