No One Wants to Attend Retrospectives

1. Smells

• Team members find any excuse to skip the retrospective
• Retrospective is very quick but no action items were produced.
• Team members consistently pass rather contribute anything during meeting.

2. Discussion

3. Causes

The team have grown bored and are finding ways of tuning out.

4. Consequences

The isn't getting value out the retrospectives and as a result isn't improving.

5. Prevention

6. Example Remedies

Spice up your retrospectives

• Try a different location - hold the meeting at a coffee shop or pub.
• Serve food at your meeting
• Change the time of day that your meeting is held
• Canvas team members before hand to find out what they want. What is their personal agenda? I like to ask the question: "You've just left your iteration retrospective and are glad you attended" What would it take have you say this?
• Read Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great
• Rework your Agenda (you have an agenda) introducing new ideas - see Jean Tabaka's "Collaboration Explained"

7. Case Studies 

Credit: this is based on material from the personal experience of Mark Levison