Sprint Retrospective
The event that closes the Sprint, where the Scrum Team inspects how the last Sprint went regarding people, relationships, process, and tools.
What it means
The Sprint Retrospective is timeboxed to a maximum of three hours for a one-month Sprint. It concludes the Sprint and comes after the Sprint Review and before the next Sprint Planning.
The team identifies what went well, what problems it encountered, and how those problems were or were not solved. The most impactful improvements are addressed as soon as possible, sometimes even added directly to the next Sprint Backlog.
Common mistakes
Unlike the Sprint Review, which focuses on the product, the Retrospective focuses on the team's ways of working, making continuous improvement an explicit, recurring practice rather than an occasional initiative.
Example
After a Retrospective reveals that code review is a bottleneck, the team agrees to a same-day review rule starting the next Sprint.