Retrospectives & Continuous Improvement Flashcards

A distributed team struggles with effective retrospectives across time zones. Which approach best maintains retrospective quality?

Answer: Cancel synchronous retrospectives and use async tools with structured prompts and a dedicated follow-up session

Async collaboration tools combined with a short synchronous follow-up preserves inclusiveness and quality for distributed teams across time zones.

The 'DAKI' retrospective framework stands for:

Answer: Drop, Add, Keep, Improve

DAKI is a retrospective format that categorizes team practices into those to Drop, Add, Keep, or Improve.

Measuring the cycle time of retrospective action items from creation to completion is an example of:

Answer: Applying agile metrics to the improvement process itself

Tracking how long it takes to complete improvement actions treats the improvement process with the same rigor as product development.

A Product Manager wants to attend every retrospective to provide direct feedback to the team. The Scrum Master should:

Answer: Explain that retrospectives are for the Scrum Team only, and offer alternative feedback channels like sprint reviews

Retrospectives are a safe space for the Scrum Team to self-inspect; external stakeholder presence can inhibit honest discussion, and the sprint review is the appropriate forum for PM feedback.

Which of the following improvement experiments follows the PDCA (Plan-Do-Check-Act) cycle correctly?

Answer: Plan a small experiment, implement it for one sprint, review outcomes at the next retrospective, standardize or adjust

The PDCA cycle calls for planning a small change, running it as a time-boxed experiment, inspecting results, and then acting to standardize or adjust based on findings.

What is the primary risk of using the same retrospective format every sprint?

Answer: The team may become bored and disengaged, reducing the quality of insights generated

Using the same format repeatedly can cause participants to disengage, reducing the diversity and depth of insights that continuous improvement requires.

When an agile team identifies a systemic organizational impediment during retrospective that the team cannot resolve on its own, the appropriate escalation path is:

Answer: The Scrum Master escalates it to leadership while the team focuses on impediments within their control

The Scrum Master's role includes escalating organizational impediments beyond team control to appropriate leadership while keeping the team productive on solvable issues.