When working on projects in an Agile framework, it can be easy to fall into a routine of simply ‘going through the motions’ during Scrum rituals. A project team can settle into a plateau with the repetitive nature of Sprint cycles and associated practices. You may notice that your team performs the rituals as scheduled, yet the core goal of each method has been forgotten. This creates a risk that little value is extracted from each activity, meaning that they no longer provide insight and incremental improvement.
This risk is exceptionally high and standard during Retrospective rituals, especially if the team becomes focused on their achievements during the Sprint rather than exploring opportunities for improvement. When Retros are not conducted in-depth, a huge opportunity is missed – to keep the team performing well and take their performance to higher levels.