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Monthly Retrospective
What A monthly reflection on what went well, what went wrong, what shipped, team mood, and improvements.
Owner Project Manager facilitates; the development team participates.
Triggers A recurring monthly calendar invite.

Summary

The monthly retrospective is the team's regular health and improvement check. It replaces the per-sprint retro with a broader monthly view that spans multiple sprints. It looks back at what went well and what went wrong since the last meeting, what the team actually shipped, how people are feeling, and what concrete changes would prevent future problems. The focus is process and outcomes, not individuals.

Full detail

Cadence and participants

  • Frequency: monthly, on a recurring invite.
  • Participants: Project Manager (facilitator) and the development team. QA and others participate as relevant.

Agenda

  1. What went well since the last meeting.
  2. What went wrong since the last meeting.
  3. What we shipped: the releases, features, and fixes that went to production in the period.
  4. Team mood: how people are feeling about workload, process, and collaboration. An honest read on morale is a first-class agenda item, not an afterthought.
  5. What we can improve to avoid future issues, captured as concrete action items with owners.
  6. Review of previous action items: were the last meeting's improvements actually done.

Guidelines

  • Focus on process improvement, not individual performance or personal issues. Accountability for specific defects belongs in Escaped Defects Analysis, not here.
  • Encourage open, honest feedback in an informal environment.
  • The PM records inputs and ensures follow-up on action items, so the meeting produces change rather than just discussion.
flowchart TD
    A[Monthly recurring invite] --> B[What went well]
    B --> C[What went wrong]
    C --> D[What we shipped]
    D --> E[Team mood check]
    E --> F[Improvements to prevent future issues]
    F --> G[Review previous action items]
    G --> H[Record action items with owners]
    H --> I[Follow-up tracked to next month]

Relationship to other processes

  • It is broader than the sprint ceremonies in Agile Ceremonies and replaces the per-sprint retro.
  • It is distinct from Escaped Defects Analysis: EDA assigns cause and accountability for a specific escaped defect, while the retrospective looks at overall process health. Patterns noticed across several EDAs are a good input to the retro's "what we can improve."

Example

In the May retro, the team notes that two releases shipped smoothly but one slipped due to late requirement changes (what went wrong). Mood is generally good but two engineers flag context-switching from support duty. Shipped work is reviewed. The improvement agreed is a clearer cut-off for requirement changes before a release freeze, with the PM owning the policy update in this playbook. The action is recorded and checked next month.