The Small Habits that Build Better Teams

You know the retro. Two people do the talking, a few nod along, and the rest plan lunch in their heads. Someone types up actions, nobody owns them, and by the next sprint, you could copy and paste the same notes.

Beyond the repetition, many teams face the moment where a curly question is posed… the room tightens and the silence stretches. A facilitator asks for thoughts, the same voices speak, and the group moves on without alignment. That is not a failure of people as you might expect, but of process and preparation - the cultivation of the feeling of safety we all need to engage openly.

The good news is that small, practical changes can shift a retro from uncomfortable to constructive. With a few small tweaks and pragmatic use of a dedicated retro tool, you can remove friction and help every voice contribute.

Why retros get awkward

Psychological safety is a fragile thing, and many people don’t want their name next to a tough observation. When input is linked to identity, quieter contributors will censor themselves or stay silent. A free retro tool with optional anonymity makes it easier to share candour without fear, so the group can work with the full picture.

Repetition drains energy. If the format never changes, participants predict what will be said, and attention drifts. A facilitator can rotate formats, but a free retro tool that includes ready-made templates reduces prep and ensures the prompt matches the purpose.

Lack of follow-through is another culprit. Teams capture ideas, then lose momentum when actions live in slides, docs, or chat threads that no one revisits. When improvement work is not visible alongside delivery, it feels optional. A free retro tool inside Jira keeps actions close to the work, so progress is visible, owned, and reviewable next time.

Finally, the disconnect from the systems you use every day creates overhead. Copying outcomes from a whiteboard into a tracker wastes time and breaks context. A free retro tool that is Jira native removes that busywork and helps the group stay in one flow, from reflection to action.

Practical ways to ease the awkwardness in retros

You do not need to reinvent your ceremony. A handful of small shifts will create momentum quickly. Use the following as a simple starting point, then adapt to your context over the next few sprints.

• Mix up the format to keep focus and energy. Rotate simple templates that match your goal, such as start stop continue for clarity, sailboat for risk and blockers, or liked learned lacked and longed for when you want to widen perspective. Variety prevents deja vu and prompts fresher thinking. The tool with built-in templates makes that rotation effortless.
• Create safety so quieter voices can contribute. Offer anonymity for input, and add a quick mood survey at the start to take the temperature. Think of it as retro karaoke. It feels easier to sing when people cannot see your name on the screen. A free retro tool that supports anonymous posting and private voting invites honest input without the spotlight.
• Focus on follow-through so change is visible. During the retro, turn themes into clear actions with an owner and a next step. Close the loop in the next session by reviewing what moved, what stalled, and why. A free retro tool that captures owners and links actions to your board keeps accountability real, not performative.
• Keep it connected to your delivery flow. Run the retro in Jira, attach outcomes to the backlog, and make learning visible where everyone already works. When reflection and delivery sit together, improvement becomes part of the job, not an extra task. A free retro tool embedded in Jira keeps outcomes transparent and trackable.

How Review by Easy Agile helps

Review by Easy Agile is designed to make these practical steps easy to apply. It is a free retro tool, built to run inside Jira so teams do not have to juggle extra platforms or paste outcomes into new places.

Optional anonymity lowers the social risk, so people can share honestly without worrying about politics. Voting and reactions help the group surface priorities, and mood surveys reveal how the room is feeling before you dive into detail. A free retro tool should not replace facilitation. It should remove friction, help you stay inclusive, and keep the session moving with calm structure.

Actions belong where the work lives. In Review, you capture owners and next steps as part of the session, then keep them visible on the board or backlog. That visibility makes it natural to check in during stand-up or planning, rather than saving all accountability for the next review. A free retro tool that treats improvement as real work helps teams compound progress over time.

Because Review is Jira native, there is no overhead. You can run a session, gather input asynchronously if needed, and finish with clear outcomes. For busy teams, a tool that fits the flow is the difference between skipping a ceremony and running one that feels useful. If you prefer simple, choose a free retro tool that keeps your team in Jira.

A short facilitator script you can try next sprint

Open with purpose. State why you are meeting and what a useful outcome looks like. Invite people to contribute ideas silently for a few minutes. Enable anonymity if there is any risk of self-censorship. Reveal themes and ask the group to react and vote. Turn the top themes into clear actions with owners. Close by confirming how and where those actions will be tracked. Because it runs in Jira, a free retro tool makes each step lightweight and repeatable.

The final takeaway

Everyone has sat through an awkward retro. It does not have to stay that way. Practical tweaks build confidence and trust, and a free retro tool lowers barriers so the team can focus on learning and follow through. When reflection lives next to delivery, improvements aren’t wishful thinking. They become visible work.

If you are a delivery lead, a scrum master, or a team manager, consider what would make your next session feel calmer and more inclusive. Rotate a template, enable anonymity, add a mood check, and decide on owners in the room. Then keep those outcomes in front of the team during the next sprint. With support from a free retro tool that lives in Jira, small steps will add up.

Make your next retro feel less like pulling teeth and more like progress. Try Review by Easy Agile, a free retro tool that helps teams turn reflection into real change without extra overhead.

FAQ: Five quick answers for smoother retrospectives

1. How does anonymity work in Review?

Facilitators can enable anonymous input so names are hidden while ideas are captured and discussed. Voting is private. When you turn ideas into actions, you add an owner, so accountability is clear without exposing earlier comments.

2. Can we use Review outside of software delivery?

Yes. Any team that reflects on work can benefit. Marketing, operations, project groups, and cross-functional squads can pick a template that matches their purpose and keep outcomes visible.

3. How do we lift participation without putting people on the spot?

Open with a quick mood survey to take the temperature. Collect ideas silently and anonymously, then reveal themes and invite reactions. Ask simple, open prompts such as what helped, what held us back, and what will we try next.

4. What keeps actions from getting lost after the session?

Create actions during the retro with a clear owner and link them to your board or backlog. Start the next session by reviewing what moved and what stalled. Visibility in Jira helps the team organise follow-through between meetings.

5. Does Review replace facilitation or training?

No. Review reduces friction and lowers social risk, but a thoughtful facilitator still sets the tone, chooses the right template, and keeps the group focused. The tool makes it easier to go from reflection to progress without extra admin.

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Every facilitator has a story about the retro that went sideways. You arrive with a plan, the board is ready, and somehow the energy drops, a few voices carry the room, or good intentions dissolve the moment the meeting ends.

You’re not alone.

These (unfortunately) are normal patterns in team life, and they are all workable.

This post offers practical moves you can apply today, plus a simple way to keep outcomes visible and owned by running your session in a dedicated Jira retrospective app. When you host the conversation where the work already lives, you immediately reduce friction and make it easier to stick with what you decided. Using a dedicated retrospective app also creates a repeatable structure, increases safety through anonymity, and helps you close the loop when things get busy.

Problem #1: Awkward silence

Silence at the start is common when people are unsure what’s safe to share, when context is missing, or when the team is fatigued. Many teams also need a minute to switch from delivery to reflection. Your first job as the retro facilitator is to warm up the room and set a tone of psychological safety without forcing anyone to perform. A light, specific opening in your retrospective app helps you do that reliably.

Facilitator moves that help

• Open with a quick mood read. “On a scale of 1 to 5, how ready are you to talk about this sprint, and why?”
• Use a clear icebreaker template. “Share one small win and one friction point from this sprint.”
• Prime with context. “Here is what we shipped and what slipped. What feels most important to talk about first?”
• Offer a safe first step. “If you prefer, add one thought anonymously to get us started.”

A quick example: you open with a mood survey. Two people say 2 out of 5. You ask for one friction point. A quiet engineer adds an anonymous note about flaky tests. That becomes the first topic, and the ice breaks without calling on anyone.

Problem #2: The same voices dominate

Dominance is rarely ill-intended. Some people process out loud, others wait. Seniors feel responsible, juniors fear judgment, and remote calls magnify the gap. Without structure, airtime follows hierarchy and personality rather than insight. A Jira retrospective app with anonymity, timers, and voting helps you rebalance the floor so every voice shapes the picture.

Facilitator moves that help

• Set the expectation. “We are aiming for range over repetition. I will invite quiet voices in and timebox longer riffs.”
• Collect ideas silently first. “Take two minutes to add thoughts in the Jira retrospective app, anonymously if you like. We will read before we talk.”
• Use structured rounds and random order. “One sentence per person on what matters most, and I will draw names at random.”
• Vote before debate. “Please vote on the two items you think we should discuss first in the Jira retrospective app.”
• Redirect with appreciation. “I am going to pause you there to hear from Priya, then we will come back to decide the next step.”

A quick example: after silent capture, the top-voted item is from a new tester about test data resets. You start there. The architect still contributes, but you run one sentence rounds in random order, and the tester speaks early. The conversation is more balanced and the topic reflects team priorities, not volume.

Make it easier in Jira: Review by Easy Agile supports anonymous posting, timers, and voting, so the group sets the order, and the Jira retrospective app keeps airtime fair without you policing the room. And it's free, forever. Give it a spin now.

Repetitive discussions

When every retro sounds the same, you are likely seeing a mix of familiar prompts, unresolved root causes, and a human tendency to rehash what feels safe. People bring up the same issues because they do not see change, or because the problem is a symptom of something deeper that never gets addressed. Remote sessions can amplify this, as vague statements go unchallenged and discussions drift without evidence. Rotating the lens and tightening the evidence improves freshness and focus. The key - finding a way to make the rotation easy to repeat.

Facilitator moves that help

• Interrupt the pattern with a new frame. “Today we are doing sprint health, not Start Stop Continue. Pick one green, one amber, one red.”
• Anchor talk to specific evidence. “Add one example or metric beside your point, even if it’s rough.”
• Name the loop and set a decision. “We have circled this three times. Let us pick one experiment and a check date.”
• Timebox and summarise. “We have five minutes on this. I will summarise what I hear, then we will decide on one step.”
• Rotate voices and roles. “I am asking two quieter voices to go first, then someone new to scribe the action.”

A quick example: your team keeps revisiting flaky tests. You switch to a sprint health template in your Jira retrospective app. Under quality, three notes cluster on data resets. You timebox five minutes, summarise the pattern, and the team chooses a one-week experiment to seed fresh data nightly with a check date next retro.

Problem #3: No follow-through

Actions fade when they’re vague, ownerless, or lost in a separate tool. Improvement work also competes with delivery, so ambiguous items slip to the edges. When actions sit outside the Jira retrospective app, the team cannot see them during planning or standup, which erodes trust in the process. The fix is simple. Make actions concrete, owned, and visible where work happens.

Facilitator moves that help

• Limit improvement work in progress. “We will leave with no more than three actions so we can finish, not collect.”
• Write actions like tickets, not slogans. “Verb plus outcome, one owner, and a check date. Example: Reduce build time from 18 to 12 minutes by pruning steps. Owner Sam. Check next Friday.”
• Define the smallest visible step. “What can we show as progress by the next retro?”
• Tie actions to delivery. “If this belongs on the backlog, create or link the issue now from the Jira retrospective app.”
• Review previous actions first. “Open last retro’s actions. What is done, what is stuck, what did we learn?”
• Make blockers explicit. “What would stop this from happening, and how will we remove that?”

A quick example: the team decides to prune the pipeline. You capture the action during the session, assign Sam, and set a one-week check. You convert it to a ticket from the Jira retrospective app, link it to the right epic, and call it out at standup. Next retro, you review progress first, celebrate a 3-minute gain, and agree on one follow-up step.

Problem #4: Disconnected tools

When retros live in slides, spreadsheets, or whiteboards, insight drifts away from delivery. People struggle to find notes, context is lost, and good ideas die in document sprawl. Running the session where your issues, boards, and backlog already live keeps reflection part of the work, not an admin task. A Jira-native retro app solves this problem at the source by removing copy-paste effort and keeping the thread intact.

Facilitator moves that help

• Reduce context switching. “We will run today’s session in Jira so we can link ideas to work without leaving the room.”
• Show the board while you talk. “Let us open the board beside the notes to check assumptions.”
• Keep the thread alive. “We will revisit the same session page next time to see what changed.”
• Invite ownership in place. “If this action belongs to a squad, assign it now so it does not float.”

A quick example: you discuss release incidents while looking at the board. One note becomes a backlog item in the right epic. The team walks out knowing where to find it, and planning picks it up without extra ceremony.

How Review helps facilitators

Review by Easy Agile gives you helpful structure without ceremony. It provides templates for common formats, anonymous posting, reactions, voting, mood surveys, and an actions column that records clear next steps with ownership. Because it’s a Jira native, your session sits next to issues, boards, and epics, which means people can find it, act on it, and return to it without friction.

Remember, the biggest lift for facilitators isn’t collecting more thoughts. It’s reducing setup, improving psychological safety, and closing the loop on actions. For time-poor teams, a Jira retrospective app removes prep overhead, keeps the conversation structured, and ensures every session ends with owned actions in context. Even if a discussion gets messy, the guardrails are there so you can focus on guiding the room rather than managing the tool. Review by Easy Agile acts as a safety net that makes good practice the default.

Pre-retro checklist for smooth sessions

• Pick a template and write a two-sentence purpose for the session.
• Add a quick mood survey to your Jira retrospective app.
• Prepare a one-minute context recap with shipped items and known risks.
• Decide in advance how you will rebalance airtime if needed.
• Block five minutes at the end for action capture and owner assignment.

Quick facilitator micro-scripts across problems

• “Let us take two quiet minutes to add thoughts in the Jira retrospective app, then we will read before we talk.”
• “We will vote on the top two topics so the group, not the loudest voice, sets our order.”
• “What is the smallest visible step we can take by next retro, and who owns it in Jira?”
• “I am inviting two quiet voices first, then we will open it up.”
• “I hear we are looping. Let us change the frame and try a lessons learned angle.”
• “We will capture actions in the Jira retrospective app now so nothing gets lost.”
• “Before we start, here is the last set of actions in our Jira retrospective app. What is done, what is stuck?”

The point of facilitation is not about avoiding problems. It’s about steering through them with calm, practical moves that help people talk, decide, and act. When you combine good tactics with good tools that keep everything close to the work, tricky moments become turning points. Review by Easy Agile gives you the structure, safety, and follow-through to run the kind of sessions teams value.

Make facilitation easier with Review by Easy Agile, free in Jira.

When I first began working as a Scrum Master, I quickly became focused on the world of metrics. I believed that for my teams to succeed, they needed to have a continuously improving velocity, a stable cumulative flow diagram, or a perfect burn-down chart.

Sound familiar?

The problem with these metrics is that they are efficiency, not value focused.

It doesn't matter if a team builds one hundred new features rapidly if none of those actually deliver value to the customer. Efficiency metrics also have a habit of being misused and misunderstood, and this can breed malcontent.

Rather than focusing heavily on the data in retrospectives, I aim to focus on the people. The Agile Manifesto after all is about enabling people and their interactions.

Each of us are beating hearts behind our devices

Making time for human interaction...has resulted in far better outcomes than any beautifully constructed burndown chart.

Through embracing a human-first approach, a team I once worked with learned that they as a group were avid gamers. They'd been working together for years but hadn't known. This team was under a lot of pressure to deliver to difficult timescales and retros had fallen by the wayside.

This was the first thing I focused on; getting them believing in retrospectives again. Taking a human-centred approach, I melted the ice with some unfettered time to talk about non-work stuff “What was your favourite childhood video game”.

Just a few minutes of idle chatter about Sonic, Legend of Zelda, and Mario kicked off a chain of events that started with a few of them arranging to game together that evening, and before long, we had weekly video game-themed zoom backgrounds and retrospectives always had a gaming twist. Think Dungeons & Dragons, Tetris, Pokémon & Among Us.

Another great sign that a team is on the right track is how much they laugh together. This team was noticeably happier as a consequence, the change was drastic, almost tangible.

We aren't just avatars on our screens, each of us are beating hearts behind our devices, with passions, likes, dislikes, and aspirations. Making time for human interaction and building retrospectives that focus on our human side, has resulted in far better outcomes than any beautifully constructed burndown chart.

Why embrace a People-Centred approach?

Let’s delve a little into why you should focus on the human side. What’s in it for you?

• Increased Team Engagement and Participation: When retros are people-centered, team members will feel more connected to their colleagues, they’ll feel more comfortable actively participating, and have an increased sense of ownership of the team's successes and challenges.
• Improved psychological safety: With a people-centric approach, you can more easily create a safe and inclusive environment for team members to share their thoughts and experiences openly, without fear of judgement. This can foster a sense of belonging and increase the overall morale of the team.
• More enjoyment: We spend 8 of our waking hours working and half or more of our adult lives working. We owe it to ourselves to have a bit of fun in the process. A people-centric approach can result in people looking forwards to the next retro. More enjoyment, more engagement, and better outcomes. Simple.
• Better profitability: Oh, and it’s also better for the bottom line. A study by Gallup found a clear link between engagement and profitability in companies. Why are highly engaged teams more profitable? Teams that rank in the top 20% for engagement experience a 41% decrease in absenteeism and a 59% decrease in turnover. Engaged employees come to work with enthusiasm, focus, and energy.

The perfect conditions for continuous improvement.

Looking to get started with a few people-focused retrospectives?

Try a few of these free templates;

Psychological Safety Retro

The Aristotle project led by Google, found that the presence of psychological safety was the biggest factor in high performance for teams. Use this format to build the foundations of psychological safety with your teams, baseline the current levels and develop actions to improve.

Healthy Minds Retro

You wouldn’t let your car go without a service, and I bet your phone battery rarely goes below 10%. Why don’t we place the same focus on looking after our own needs, individually or collectively? Use this retro to narrow in on improvements that improve your team's health.

Spotify Health Check Retro

Famed for the agile framework that was never intended as a framework, some coaches at Spotify also released a team health check format which is great for measuring and visualising progress as a team. The simplicity of this format and its ability to highlight areas of focus as well as progress over time is particularly powerful. The best bit? It’s the team's perspective, not any external maturity model or arbitrary metric.

Autonomy, Mastery, Purpose Retro

Based upon the book ‘Drive’ by Dan Pink which highlighted the surprising things that motivate us, this retro helps teams to investigate the areas of their work which amplify or dampen our sense of autonomy, mastery & purpose. This book was a game changer for me and this retro could change the game for your teams.

5 Dysfunctions of a Team Retro

Another format based upon a highly acclaimed book, this retro builds upon the works of Patrick Lencioni and his 5 dysfunctions of a team. Using this retro, you can highlight the dysfunctional behaviours in your team and collectively solve those challenges together. One team, our problems, our solutions.

Let’s leave you with some things to think about

The key to unlocking the true potential of your teams lies in embracing a people-centered approach to retrospectives. By focusing on the human side of our teams, we can foster stronger connections, create a safe and inclusive environment, and ultimately drive better outcomes for both the team and the organization.

Remember, the Agile Manifesto is about enabling people and their interactions, and by placing people at the heart of our retrospectives, we can build stronger, happier, and more productive teams.

Forget about chasing the perfect metrics, and instead focus on building meaningful connections and fostering a culture of continuous improvement that is rooted in the human experience.

Retrospectives integrated with your work in Jira

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About Chris

For ten years now, Chris Stone has been fostering an environment of success for high-performing teams and organizations through the use of agility. He has worked across a wide range of industries and with some of the largest organizations in the world, as well as with smaller, lean enterprises.

​As The Virtual Agile coach, Chris intends to enable frictionless innovation, regardless of location, and is a firm believer in enabling agility whilst working virtually. Find him online at Virtually Agile >>

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