How to run your first retrospective with a new team

A new team may not have a completed sprint or project to discuss yet. It can still reflect on a shared experience: setting up the development environment, running the first planning session or handing over a small piece of work.

Pick a period everyone can recognise. If the group has not worked together at all, start with a conversation about expectations instead. Asking people to evaluate a team process they have not experienced can turn the meeting into guesswork.

Explain the meeting in everyday language. Here is an invitation you can adapt: “Let’s spend 45 minutes looking at our first two weeks together. We’ll discuss what helped, what was difficult and one change to try. Bring an example if you have one; there is no presentation to prepare.”

Include the meeting link, the board link and the period you will discuss. Say who is attending and how the notes will be shared. Offer a way to ask about access or participation before the call. Avoid surprising the group with extra observers when the meeting starts.

At the start, explain that the aim is to improve the way the team works. Ask people to describe events and effects rather than label another person’s intentions. Allow quiet writing and make passing an option during spoken rounds.

Be specific about the tool. In Retro, the participant link gives access to the shared board, so send it only to intended participants. Private reflection delays the reveal of new notes; it does not remove authors’ names. Explain those boundaries before asking people to write.

A difficult personal concern may need a separate, appropriate conversation. Do not promise that everything on a shared retrospective board will remain confidential or that one introductory exercise creates trust.

Give the team a few minutes to write before reading the notes together. One specific example is enough; there is no need to fill a column for the sake of it. These prompts work for onboarding as well as delivery.

• What helped you make progress? For example, someone pairing on the setup steps.
• Where did you have to guess? For example, an unclear owner for a release decision.
• What is one thing we could try next time? For example, adding a named contact beside each setup step.

Choose one observation the team understands and one change it can influence. A useful first action might be to update the first three unclear onboarding steps, with a volunteer and a review date. Avoid committing the new team to redesigning every process it encounters.

Close by asking whether the format gave people a useful way to contribute. Record any adjustment for the next meeting, such as sending the prompts earlier or allowing more time to read notes.

At the next retrospective, begin with the action you agreed. Show what changed, explain what did not and decide whether to keep trying it. That visible follow-up gives the team evidence about how its feedback will be handled.