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Should Managers Attend Retrospectives?

TL; DR: Should Managers Attend Retrospectives?

There are plenty of failure possibilities with Scrum. Given that Scrum is a framework with a reasonable yet short “manual,” this effect should not surprise anyone. A classic discussion is whether it is appropriate that (line) managers attend the Retrospectives of the Scrum team. Probably, making their attendance a regular habit — or even a requirement — is not a good idea. However, what about managers that occasionally attend a Retrospective? Moreover, what if the (line) manager is also a team member?

Join me and delve into the how and when of managers attending Retrospectives in less than two minutes.
Should Managers Attend Retrospectives?

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Scrum and Micro-Retrospectives

One of the twelve principles behind the Agile Manifesto says: “At regular intervals, the team reflects on how to become more effective, then tunes and adjusts its behavior accordingly”. Agile is all about adjustments here and there, learning, fine-tuning and responding to change. 

It’s really hard to adjust and fine-tune effectively if we don’t pause to find out where adjustments are needed. The Sprint Retrospective is the mechanism that Scrum teams usually use to fulfill this principle of inspection and adaptation. Unfortunately, the retrospective is often treated like an add-on or a luxury and performed only “if there’s time”.

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13 Effective Ways for Scrum Masters to Build Happy Teams

In 1986 Hirotaka Takeuchi and Ikujiro Nonaka published The New New Product Development Game in Harvard Business Review. They described a groundbreaking approach to complex product development. In the article, they borrowed the word "Scrum" from the game of Rugby. The analogy of product development to a game is quite interesting here. A team can achieve full potential if they are enjoying their work, like players playing a game with fun.   

Scrum masters can facilitate the ways to create this fun element in their team’s day to day work. Following are some actionable techniques which can help in doing it:   

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Agile Adolescence: The Gawky Teenage Years

As an Agile Coach, it’s exciting to watch a team of young agilists start their Agile journey. Some start with unbridled enthusiasm, others with fear and trepidation. They then crawl from Agile infants to toddlers learning how to communicate and play well with others, then move into Agile childhood where they begin to develop competencies and enjoy success. And then… [long pause] …they become Agile teenagers – yikes!

Don’t get me wrong – I’ve raised one teenager and have another now, and I love them even during their teenage years. There are great times at that age, and there are, well, less than great times too. Those growing in their agility go through stages similar to what my kids did. Some move through the teenage years with grace and style, some with a rebellious attitude, and unfortunately some stay in Agile adolescence way longer than they should. Being an Agile teenager is normal for a while, but just as we don’t want our children living in our basement, playing video games and eating Cheetos well into their 30’s, at some point every Agile teenager needs to grow into adulthood.