Why Retrospectives Fail Without Trust

Process won’t save a team that’s afraid to speak up. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a process girl through and through. It’s my bread and butter. It brings rhythm, clarity, and focus. But I’ve seen teams build beautiful workflows that still fall apart. Automations. Templates. Status rituals. All clean on paper. Under the surface? People were second-guessing. Avoiding conflict. Afraid to raise risks. Because culture eats process for breakfast. No tooling can fix a team that doesn’t feel safe. No standup can replace trust. No framework can overcome fear of being blamed. If your retros are quiet, your risks are hidden. If your 1:1s are surface-level, your blockers are buried. If your team looks “on track” but nobody’s pushing back, you’ve got a silent failure in progress. So what can you do as a PM? ✅ You fix the fear. ✅ You lead the trust. Here’s how: ▶ In 1:1s, ask real questions: “What’s something you’ve been holding back?” “What do you wish we’d talk about more as a team?” ▶ In retros, model vulnerability: “I hesitated to speak up about X last sprint. I want us all to feel safe raising things earlier, even if they’re messy or unpopular.” ▶ In meetings, reward truth, not timeline: If someone raises a delay, thank them publicly. Normalize speaking up. ▶ When there’s tension, don’t smooth it over. Get curious. Silence isn’t alignment, it’s fear with a filter. Fix the fear, not just the Jira. Visibility = creating clarity where others stay silent. Leadership = creating space for others to speak freely. 👉 If you're still managing tasks and tools, but not trust, you’re not leading yet. Tag a PM who gets this. ♻️ Repost to help others lead teams with trust 🔔 Follow Elizabeth Dworkin for more like this

Are Your Retros a Waste of Time? I recently attended a retrospective where the team was seriously disengaged. Like, silent. Afterwards, I asked the developers why, and they said "We're disengaged because this meeting isn’t valuable." I said, "I think you've got that backwards. The retro isn't valuable because you’re disengaged!" Retros are a core Scrum event. Teams have a chance to reflect, adapt, and grow. When done well, they encourage accountability and improvement. But when they fail, they just a chore. Let's revisit the purpose of retros and see where teams go wrong. Purpose The purpose of a retro is to reflect on the ending sprint, identify what worked and what didn’t, and decide on improvements. It’s not about rehashing, but learning. A successful retro strikes a balance between celebrating successes and addressing challenges. The team should leave energized, motivated, and ready to adapt. Where Retros Go Wrong Retros fail when teams drift from their purpose, team members don’t feel safe sharing honest feedback, discussions are superficial, and real issues are ignored. Some teams focus too much on the negative, turning retros into morale-killing complaint sessions. Others waste the meeting congratulating themselves instead of acknowledging problems. Neither approach leads to improvement. Then there are vague or unrealistic action items. Goals like “improve communication” sound good but no one knows what that really means, so... no change. Disengagement is another challenge. Teams mistake it as proof the retro isn’t valuable, but it’s the other way around. Disengagement causes ineffective discussions, creating a vicious cycle. Lack of follow-through undermines the whole exercise. Without accountability, retros lose credibility and the team just repeats the same mistakes. Refocus to Reclaim Retros First, create a safe environment for open dialogue. Leaders and facilitators should model vulnerability and keep discussions focused on issues, not people. Celebrate successes, but dive into challenges with an honest intent to improve. This balance keeps retros positive and productive. Make action items specific, measurable, and realistic. Aim for clarity, like “schedule a five-minute daily sync to address blockers.” I’m not going to recommend retro formats, because you can Google a googol of them, and the format matters far less than the conversation. There are tools, though, that may help - like Parabol, Retrium, and EasyRetro. Jira users might try TeamRetro or Agile Retrospectives. These tools provide templates, prompts, and visual boards that can really help. Experiment to find what works best. Oh... and close the loop on action items. Start each retro by reviewing progress on past improvements, and you'll reinforce accountability. Stop Wasting Time If retros feel like a waste of time, you may have strayed from their purpose. Retros aren't inherently valuable; they only become valuable when teams engage, reflect, and act.

𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝗮 𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗻𝘀 𝘁𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗰, 𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝘀 𝗮𝗹𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝘆 𝗯𝗿𝗼𝗸𝗲𝗻 I have seen retros where people stay silent, where feedback is recycled every sprint, or where blame takes the place of learning. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗻𝗼𝘁 𝗰𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗺𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗲𝘀. 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝘆 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘀𝗶𝗴𝗻𝘀! Three red flags of toxic retrospectives: 1- Silence in the room – people don’t feel safe to speak, 2- Groundhog day feedback – same points repeated sprint after sprint, no change, 3- Blame game – focus on individuals instead of processes or systems, A good retrospective is not about post-its on the wall. It is about trust, action, and progress. 𝒲ℎ𝑎𝑡’𝑠 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑡 （𝑜𝑟 𝑤𝑜𝑟𝑠𝑡） 𝑟𝑒𝑡𝑟𝑜𝑠𝑝𝑒𝑐𝑡𝑖𝑣𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 ℎ𝑎𝑣𝑒 𝑒𝑥𝑝𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑑？ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🇫🇷 𝗨𝗻𝗲 𝗿é𝘁𝗿𝗼𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘁𝗼𝘅𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 = 𝘂𝗻𝗲 𝗮𝗴𝗶𝗹𝗶𝘁é 𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘀é𝗲 Trois signaux d’alerte: 1- Silence complet 2- Feedback répété à l’infini sans action 3- Recherche de coupables au lieu d’améliorer le système 👉 Une vraie rétro, ce n’est pas des post-its, c’est de la confiance, des actions et du progrès. 𝒬𝑢𝑒𝑙𝑙𝑒 𝑒𝑠𝑡 𝑙𝑎 𝑚𝑒𝑖𝑙𝑙𝑒𝑢𝑟𝑒 （𝑜𝑢 𝑝𝑖𝑟𝑒） 𝑟é𝑡𝑟𝑜 𝑞𝑢𝑒 𝑣𝑜𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑣𝑒𝑧 𝑣é𝑐𝑢𝑒 ？

After working with multiple cross-functional teams, one thing has become painfully clear: 𝐌𝐨𝐬𝐭 𝐀𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐬𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 𝐟𝐚𝐢𝐥 𝐧𝐨𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐠𝐚𝐩𝐬 𝐛𝐮𝐭 𝐛𝐞𝐜𝐚𝐮𝐬𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐮𝐥𝐭𝐮𝐫𝐚𝐥 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬. We obsess over ceremonies, tools, and metrics, but we often overlook the single most important factor that determines whether a team thrives or burns out: PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY Here’s the hard truth: 𝐘𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐀𝐠𝐢𝐥𝐞 𝐟𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐤 𝐢𝐬 𝐨𝐧𝐥𝐲 𝐚𝐬 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐨𝐧𝐠 𝐚𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐬𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦 𝐟𝐞𝐞𝐥𝐬. - You can run flawless standups and still ship broken products. - You can track sprint velocity religiously and still leave your team drowning in burnout. - You can have retrospectives every two weeks and still hear silence in the room. Because when people don’t feel safe to speak up, question assumptions, or admit blockers, “Agile” becomes theater.... busy but brittle. Here's are 5 approaches to bridge the trust gap in your team. 📍T — Transparency in Decision-Making Don’t just hand down priorities. Explain the why. Show your uncertainties. Invite your team into the decision. ↳Start every sprint planning with 5 minutes of context. It changes everything. 📍R — Reward Intelligent Failures High-performing teams don’t avoid failure, they mine it for insights. ↳ Dedicate a section in retrospectives to “productive failures.” Celebrate what you learned. 📍U — Unblock Before You Judge When someone raises an issue, don’t start with “why.” Start with “how can I help?” ↳ Create safe, multiple pathways for people to surface blockers including anonymously. 📍S — Shared Accountability Shift the narrative from “who’s at fault” to “what can we improve together.” ↳ Replace individual blame metrics with team success metrics. 📍T — Time for Reflection Pushing relentlessly without pause kills innovation. Space to reflect is where creativity breathes. ↳ Reserve 30 minutes at the end of every sprint for conversations that are separate from delivery-focused retros. This is crucial because Teams with high psychological safety consistently outperform others with higher #teamperformance, lower turnover, fewer quality issues and higher revenue performance Here's a place to start.... In your next team meeting, take one recent decision and walk your team through your reasoning, including what you were uncertain about. That single act of vulnerability creates space for openness everywhere else. Remember, #Agile isn’t about speed. It’s about creating conditions where teams can thrive under uncertainty. And that begins with TRUST. P.S. How do you build psychological safety in your team? Share in the comments. Your insights could help someone lead better. Follow 👉 Benjamina Mbah Acha for insights that help you plan, execute, and deliver projects with confidence.