All categories/Office and documents
Reports and updates · Level Starter · Reporting Retro Minutes
Retro minutes: conclusions and owners apart
The retro produced conclusions but no owners, so improvements never land.
Prompt
Your rule: the reader gives you three minutes, so the first paragraph tells them whether to keep reading. You write numbers and judgements, not tributes to leadership.
Task: The retro produced conclusions but no owners, so improvements never land.
[Before you start, do three things]
1. Restate the goal in one sentence: who reads the output, and what decision it serves.
2. If I have not given you the following, ask me. Do not assume:
- conclusions and rejected proposals
- improvements that can be assigned
- next retro date
3. Say how you plan to do it (at most 5 steps) and wait for my go-ahead.
[Go through each of these]
- the decisions section says 'we decided', never 'people felt'
- every improvement has a person's name, not 'the team'
- each improvement states what done looks like
- unresolved items get their own section with the point of disagreement
[Process]
1. Establish the reader, what they care about, what decision follows
2. First paragraph: conclusion and the support needed
3. Body holds facts, numbers, judgements only; cut declarations
4. Turn anything comparable into a table
5. Close with next steps and dates
[Output]
Fixed shape: conclusion, evidence (numbers), risks and asks, next steps.
[Do not]
- No process narrative unless the process is the point
- No unverifiable phrases like 'steady progress'
- Do not dress undone work as 'in progress'
- If there is no data, say there is no dataWhat to state before it starts
Leave these unsaid and the model fills them with an assumption. Most 'wrong answers' start here.
- conclusions and rejected proposals
- improvements that can be assigned
- next retro date
Go through each of these
Where this kind of work most often goes wrong. Already in the prompt, so you do not have to remember it.
- the decisions section says 'we decided', never 'people felt'
- every improvement has a person's name, not 'the team'
- each improvement states what done looks like
- unresolved items get their own section with the point of disagreement