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Sprint Retrospective

The retrospective is the team's reflective ceremony. Each member writes their personal retro file, then the Scrum Master triggers a synthesis that produces a unified retrospective document with themes, patterns, and action items.

Step 1: Each team member fills in their retro file​

The retro template is created at:

workspace/sprint/NN/retrospective/[login].md

Template:

# Retro — Alice Smith — Sprint 01

## Went well
<!-- What went well this sprint? Be specific. -->

## Could improve
<!-- What would you change? Focus on process, not people. -->

## Action items I'll own
<!-- Personal commitments for next sprint. -->

Example filled-in:

# Retro — Alice Smith — Sprint 01

## Went well
- Pairing with Bob on the OAuth integration was really effective
- PR reviews happened same-day for most of the sprint
- Standup async format saved a lot of context-switching

## Could improve
- The infra blocker on #38 sat unresolved for 3 days before Charlie escalated
  — we need a clearer escalation policy
- Story #31 had unclear acceptance criteria — required 3 rounds of clarification

## Action items I'll own
- Draft an external dependency escalation policy doc
- Next sprint: write AC before creating stories, not after

Each team member commits their file:

git add workspace/sprint/001/retrospective/
git commit -m "retro: sprint 01 [skip ci]"
git push

Step 2: Trigger retrospective synthesis (Scrum Master)​

Once all retro files are pushed:

  1. Go to Actions → Scraut — Sprint Retrospective
  2. Click Run workflow
  3. Fill in: Sprint number: 1
  4. Click Run workflow

What happens​

SM triggers sprint-retrospective
  │
  ├─ synthesise_retrospective.py
  │     Reads all workspace/sprint/001/retrospective/*.md files
  │     Extracts "Went well", "Could improve", "Action items" sections
  │     Calls LLM: "Identify themes across these individual retros"
  │     LLM groups insights by theme, surfaces common patterns
  │
  ├─ Writes .scraut/sprint/001/review/retro-synthesis.md  [BOT-GENERATED]
  │
  └─ Posts synthesis to #scraut-bot

The synthesis document​

.scraut/sprint/001/review/retro-synthesis.md:

<!-- BOT-GENERATED — Sprint 01 Retrospective Synthesis -->

# Sprint 01 Retrospective — Team Synthesis

## What went well (3 contributors, 6 items)

**Collaboration (mentioned by 2/3):**
- Alice + Bob pairing on OAuth was effective
- PR reviews averaged 1 day turnaround

**Process (mentioned by 3/3):**
- Async standup format reduced context-switching
- Sprint goal was clear and well-understood

## Could improve (3 contributors, 7 items)

**Blocker escalation (mentioned by 2/3):**
- External dependency on infra sat unresolved for 3 days before escalation
- No clear policy for when to escalate vs wait

**Story quality (mentioned by 3/3):**
- Acceptance criteria written after story creation caused rework
- Two stories (#31, #37) needed 3+ rounds of clarification

## Action items proposed by the team

| Owner | Action item |
|-------|------------|
| Alice | Draft external dependency escalation policy |
| Bob | Run an AC-writing workshop before Sprint 2 planning |
| Charlie (SM) | Add "AC complete" as a sprint planning gate |

## Suggested process changes
Based on team input, Scraut recommends adding these as Suggestions (see .scraut/suggestions/):
1. Pre-sprint AC review step in planning checklist
2. External dependency register reviewed at each standup

Scenario: 3-person retro with divergent views​

Characters: Alice (feature dev), Bob (backend dev), Charlie (SM)

Retros submitted:

  • Alice: Praises pairing, frustrated by unclear AC
  • Bob: Likes async standups, concerned about merge conflicts on shared files
  • Charlie: Happy with sprint velocity, worried about the infra blocker pattern

Synthesis:

  • LLM identifies "AC clarity" as the highest-frequency theme (mentioned by Alice and Charlie)
  • LLM surfaces "external dependencies" as a recurring risk (Alice and Charlie)
  • Bob's merge conflict concern is noted but not a group theme
  • Synthesis recommends 2 action items with clear owners

Time investment:

  • Each team member: ~10 minutes writing their retro file
  • SM: 2 clicks to trigger synthesis
  • Synthesis is ready in ~2 minutes
  • No synchronous retro meeting needed (though you can hold one using the synthesis as discussion material)