Whether you’re a solopreneur or a small business, retros can help you uncover roadblocks hindering your success, and can help you save time by allowing you to run your business more efficiently.
Retros, otherwise known as “Retrospectives,” give you an opportunity to review past situations and make changes for the future. Typically, these are meetings held in tech companies (or tech teams) as part of improving the software or product, but the concept can be applied to nearly any situation (business or otherwise).
Put simply, a retro allows you to revisit a previous situation that went poorly, think through contributing factors, and make changes so that those issues don’t happen again in the future.
Let’s go over the steps below with this example in mind:
Table of Contents
Step 1: Revisiting the situation
The first step is actually to get a pen and paper (or get a note-taking app), because you’re going to need write some things down as you go.
But the first step to any retro is to revisit the situation by answering these two questions:
What went well?
As you think through the previous situation, think about all of the things that had gone well.
You’ll want to keep note of the things that went well, because these are the things you want to continue doing.
Sarah Example:
- Sarah marketing her product around a holiday produced many more orders than when she marketed outside of a holiday.
- Sarah received many orders. This means that she marketed to the right audience, and that she’s serving a need.
- Sarah was eventually able to fulfill all of the orders
What didn’t go well?
Now, this section is where the bulk of the work happens, and what the rest of the retro will be centered around. In this section, you’ll want to think about (and note down!) all of the things that didn’t go well during the previous situation.
It will be especially important to take note of all of the things that didn’t go well, because these are the things you’re going to improve.
Sarah Example:
- There were more orders received than materials available
- Sarah’s inventory list was inaccurate
- Orders were fulfilled later than promised
- Sarah’s customers were upset by receiving their orders later than promised
Step 2: Diagnosing the issue
The second step is about uncovering why the situation happened. This step is crucial to helping you understand what went wrong, and may uncover some areas in your business that could be improved on.
In this step, you’ll want to revisit the things that that didn’t go well, and answer this question:
What prevented this from going well?
Noting down the answers to this question will help you to start to think through a plan of action going forward.
Sarah Example:
- Sarah wasn’t prepared to receive so many orders
- Sarah’s inventory tracking sheet was inaccurate
- Sarah has to manually track each piece of inventory, but doesn’t always remember to do that
- Sarah finds it difficult to remember to update her inventory sheet with every purchase
Step 3: Brainstorm
Once you’ve determined the factors that contributed to the situation (step 2), the third step (or what I like to call, the “fun” step) is to brainstorm.
In this step, you’ll refer back to the items in step 2 and think through all of the ways to prevent those things from happening. It may be helpful to answer the question: What could prevent this from happening again?
Sarah Example:
- Have extra inventory during the holidays
- Automate inventory tracking after every purchase. This will help Sarah understand how much material is left, and allow her to give more accurate shipping times to her customers.
Step 4: Plan of action
The brainstorm step helps you think through all of the possibilities that can help prevent the situation from happening. This last step, plan of action, helps you clearly outline the things you need to do to make your brainstormed items a reality.
Going through each brainstorm item in step 3, you’ll want to answer this question: What needs to be done to make this happen?
Sarah Example:
- Set a recurring reminder to purchase additional material 5 days before the holiday.
- Set a follow up recurring reminder 1 day later to update inventory list with accurate amount
- Research apps or tools that help automate tasks, and decide on a tool/app
- Learn how to use the app or tool
- Use the app or tool to create an automation that updates the inventory tracking after customer purchases product
And that’s it — you have just conducted your very first retro! But hopefully, this isn’t your last.
Whether you do this every month or every quarter, I’d recommend doing retros regularly. You also don’t need to do this alone. If you have an employee or two, I’d strongly recommend having them do this with you — they may have some insights that you hadn’t considered.
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About Cami C
Cami C is a consultant who creates blog posts and videos for small business owners. Her blog Cami at Home provides readers with suggestions and information to increase efficiency in their business. Book a consultation.