# Retrospective

ℹ️

Reflect on past work and identify opportunities for improvement by following the instructions for the [Retrospective Play](https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/retrospective). This example retro uses fictional data for a product squad reviewing a recent website checkout release.

## [#](#overview)📋 Overview

| **Date**         | Jul 3, 2026                                                                |
| ---------------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| **Team**         | Northstar Checkout Squad                                                   |
| **Participants** | @unknown, Priya Shah, Tom Bennett, Amelia Clarke, Marcus Hill, Sofia Patel |

## [#](#retrospective)💭 Retrospective

| ▶️ **Start doing**                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        | 🛑 **Stop doing**                                                                                                                                                                                                                    | 🙌 **Keep doing**                                                                                                                                                                                                                                |
| --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| Run a 30-minute design and engineering sparring session before stories move into sprint planning.Add a release-readiness checklist covering analytics events, accessibility checks, and rollback steps.Share customer support themes every Monday so the squad can prioritise high-impact checkout fixes. | Accepting late scope changes after Wednesday unless the team agrees to trade something out.Scheduling review meetings without a clear goal, owner, and pre-read.Waiting until the final QA pass to test payment-provider edge cases. | Posting concise daily stand-up updates with blockers, risk level, and next steps.Pairing backend and QA on payment failure scenarios before code freeze.Using the launch dashboard to track conversion, error rate, and abandoned basket trends. |
| Example evidence: 4 of 7 stories needed design clarification after development had already started.                                                                                                                                                                                                       | Example evidence: the gift-card balance story was reworked twice because acceptance criteria changed late.                                                                                                                           | Example evidence: the 24-hour launch dashboard helped detect a failed Apple Pay webhook within 18 minutes.                                                                                                                                       |
| Owner: Priya Shah will create the sparring rota by Jul 10, 2026.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          | Owner: Jack Graves will add a scope-change rule to sprint planning notes by Jul 8, 2026.                                                                                                                                             | Owner: Tom Bennett will keep the dashboard summary in the team channel after each release.                                                                                                                                                       |

📝

**Pro tip:** For a remote team, collect notes asynchronously first, then use the live retro to group themes, vote on priorities, and agree owners.

## [#](#action-items)✅ Action items

The squad agreed the following follow-up actions to apply the retrospective learnings before the next release.

* Priya Shah to schedule weekly story-sparring sessions for the next four Fridays, starting Jul 10, 2026.
* Jack Graves to publish a lightweight scope-change checklist and example decision log at <https://example.com/northstar-squad/scope-change-checklist> by Jul 8, 2026.
* Tom Bennett and Amelia Clarke to add payment-provider edge-case tests to the release checklist at <https://example.com/northstar-squad/release-checklist> by Jul 15, 2026.