During job interviews, I like to ask the candidates one particular question about Scrum to check how they understand the concept of retrospectives, and whether or not their approach to them is mechanical.
The question sounds something like, “The last Sprint went very well, and the team feels like they have nothing to discuss during the Retrospective. They suggest skipping the Retro altogether – what would you do as a Scrum Master in this case?”
Oftentimes, this phrasing of a question might get Scrum Masters puzzled, as we are too used to focusing on improvement following the standard questions like “What did we do well? What didn’t go well? What can be improved?”, as they understand that the part of “What didn’t go well” will not receive any answers and lead to a productive discussion and process improvement.
It is important to understand that process improvement does not necessarily have to be focused on the negative parts of work only – instead, try utilizing the Retrospective focusing on things that went particularly very well during the Sprint, which led to an outstanding result. As a bonus, talking about positive things might make even the passive listeners more engaged in the conversation.
A gentle reminder here: the Scrum Guide does not prescribe how to facilitate a Retrospective, and the process of continuous inspection might take various forms – don’t be afraid to try something new, especially if there is the right occasion for it.
Occasionally agile 