# Running a Team Retrospective Meeting

DevFeed: [Running a Team Retrospective Meeting](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/running-a-team-retrospective-meeting-28197.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<http://fuzzyblog.io/blog/management/2019/11/01/running-a-team-retrospective-meeting.html>)

Author: Fuzzygroup

Published: 2019-11-01T00:00:00Z

Content type: tutorial

Language: en

Sources: [Scott Johnson](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/scott-johnson.md>)

Topics: [Agile](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/agile.md>), [Requirements](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/requirements.md>), [Slack](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/slack.md>), [Template](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/template.md>), [Google](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/google.md>)

Tags: [agile](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/agile.md>), [distributed](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/distributed.md>), [email](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/email.md>), [how-to](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/how-to.md>), [management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/management.md>), [meetings](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/meetings.md>), [offsite](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/offsite.md>), [project](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/project.md>), [requirements](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/requirements.md>), [slack](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/slack.md>), [startup](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/startup.md>), [team](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/team.md>)

## AI overview

This tutorial explains how to run a lightweight team retrospective using a shared Google Spreadsheet and a visible timer. It outlines reviewing what went well, identifying improvements, and voting on the results.

## Source excerpt

I am a member of an 8 person team that is: part of a non profit distributed all over the country trying to get started on a new initiative and find our footing; we are about 1 year old (I've only been here for 2 months) just had our first offsite At the offsite I witnessed a fascinating exercises in doing a retrospective on the past year's work that my boss, Dave Sifry, orchestrated. This is now my third time consulting for Dave Sifry and he and I have done this before but I never documented it so I wanted to write down how to was done. What is a Retrospective Meeting? A retrospective is when a team looks back and tries to determine: What went well What to improve Possible questions The idea of this type of retrospective is that you're doing it in a lightweight, agile fashion where you aren't spending days or even a day on it. You can literally review a year's worth of work in under an hour (I know this because we just did it). Requirements Here's what you need to do this: A shared Google Spreadsheet that breaks things down into columns you can vote on. Here's the template to use. A timer; we used "Visual Timer 2" on an iPad which was awesome since it had great sounds but any count down timer would work. The key here is that you want it to be highly visible to everyone on the team hence using it on an iPad not a phone. Step 1 - What Went Well Here are the specific steps: Take the spreadsheet template and save it to a new name, something like "Project Name - Time Period - Retrospective". Our name was CTS 2019 Retrospective. Post the link to the spreadsheet in your team's Slack channel or email or something that everyone gets. Start the timer and announce something like "Ok. Starting now. We have 15 minutes to document what went well; GO !" Have everyone open the spreadsheet and start typing in things that went well. If someone is working in cell A2 then move to cell A3 (or A10 or whatever). No one should overwrite anyone's work. Announce "When you are done, return yo