Practice the facilitation vocabulary for running sprint retrospectives: opening, time-boxing, grouping, action items, and closing.
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You are opening a sprint retrospective for a team that has had a difficult sprint with a production incident. Which opening best sets the tone?
Retrospective opening after a difficult sprint: name the format ('Start/Stop/Continue'), set the time structure ('5 minutes adding, then group, then discuss top 3'), establish the blameless ground rule ('systems and processes, not individual performance'), set the outcome expectation ('2-3 actionable improvements'), and launch the first phase ('silent adding'). Opening with 'let's talk about what went wrong' is unfocused. 'Who was responsible?' is blame — the antithesis of a blameless retro.
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During the item-adding phase, a team member adds: 'the on-call rota is broken.' How do you handle this during silent adding?
The silent adding phase has one rule: add items, do not discuss. Discussion during adding creates two problems: it wastes time on items that may get merged or deprioritised, and it lets early discussion anchor the group's thinking before everyone has contributed. 'Note it for grouping' — the facilitator's job in this phase is to record, not filter or discuss. Ambiguous items get clarified during the grouping or voting phase.
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Two items on the retro board are closely related: 'CI pipeline is too slow' and 'tests take forever to run.' How do you handle grouping?
Grouping related items: 'these feel related — should we merge?' + quick check with the authors. This preserves the intent of both items while avoiding duplicate discussion. The authors' consent matters — they may have intended different things with similar phrasings. Asking for 'quick yes/no' time-boxes the decision. Discarding one item or fully explaining each before merging wastes time in the grouping phase.
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Discussion on one item has been running for 12 minutes with no resolution. The team has 3 more items to cover. How do you time-box?
Time-boxing an extended discussion: name the time elapsed ('12 minutes'), explain the impact on the agenda ('3 more items'), offer a bounded extension ('2 more minutes'), name the exit path ('dedicated session if unresolved'), ask for consent ('does that work?'). 'Time's up. Next item.' is abrupt and creates resentment if the topic is genuinely important. The facilitator's job is to balance depth with breadth.
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The team has identified an improvement: 'Fix the deployment process.' How do you convert it to an actionable retro item?
Converting a vague improvement to an action item requires four elements: what specifically (which part of deployment), what the done state looks like, who owns it, and when it's due. 'Fix the deployment process' fails all four. As facilitator, your job is to ask these questions before closing the retro — not after. Items without owners and due dates are forgotten. 'Add it to the backlog' is the most common way retrospective actions die.