Here’s how I used to run retrospectives when I was a Scrum Master.
I used to go around the room, one person at a time, thinking that equal airtime meant equal participation.
Round-robin format. Everyone gets a turn.
There were two people on the team who never had anything to share.
My question: “Priya, you’ve been quiet. What do you think?”
Their reply: “No, all good. I agree with what was said.”
Let me be clear.
Round-robins are good.
But!
They create compliance. And compliance is not the same as candour.
Like most facilitators, I believed that if everyone got a turn to speak, the retro was fair. After years of coaching teams and sitting in on hundreds of retrospectives, I learned that:
Quiet people don’t need more turns to speak. They need fewer reasons to stay silent.
In this post, I’ll show you how to run a retro where quiet people contribute without being put on the spot… without round-robins.
Let’s get started.