Significance of Retrospective Calls

Prologue:

The business processes of a company include onboarding the client and delivering a successful product. When we look at the big picture, quite a lot of effort goes into the delivery process and one of these inevitable processes include a retrospection call in order to see what worked and what did not. This part of the engagement process acts as a major factor in determining employee satisfaction level in terms of how the product was carried out.

A retrospection call is an internal sync-up within the company wherein the  account manager of a particular project and the delivery manager get in touch with the development team to understand the various aspects of the project. These factors can include things like how the project has been going, what is the progress, what are the challenges and if there is any scope for improvement. Hence, a clearer picture of the project is obtained by following the process of conducting retrospection calls.

The importance of satisfying the client and the team cannot be overstated. We believe a team that feels valued will be able to deliver on time with the requirements being in-line with the client's needs

What happens during retrospection calls?

The usual practice of conduction retrospection calls consists of preparing a presentation which includes:

• A brief introduction to the client
• Mission and vision of the client
• The industry they belong to
• Client operations
• How they approached us
• Tech stack utilized for the project 
• Challenges faced and solutions implemented
• Future roadmap

In the initial phase of the retrospection call, we introduce the team and its structure as well as their roles and responsibilities during the retrospect call to the management. This activity gives a feeling of involvement and transparency which is important for team building.

Additionally, this call provides an overview of GeekyAnts' responsibilities with respect to the project. Often, the account manager acts as a project manager and tracks the progress on the Jira/Trello Board, which is also shared with the client. Here we also discuss how the team has worked as a unit so far and how daily sync ups and mind mapping has helped the team connect and work better together.

Retrospection calls are an open platform for the tech team to discuss the challenges they have faced while working on the particular project and how they have overcome those challenges. These meetings not only help the tech team to discuss their issues but also helps the management to understand the project in-depth, giving them the arsenal to handle similar kinds of challenges in the near future.

Epilogue:

Here is how retrospection calls have been helping GeekyAnts with better project delivery:

• This call helps account managers to understand the employee’s challenges and come up with the best possible solution.
• Engineering team members are also motivated by the feeling of being valued and appreciated as retrospection calls give them a clearer picture of whom to reach out to in regards to any issues which in turn boosts team morale.
• For the management, they get an overview of the project which helps them to forecast how it is going.

We here at Geekyants believe in being process and delivery oriented, and retrospection calls have been instrumental in streamlining operations and keeping the engineering and business teams to stay on top of things.

I hope this article has helped you to understand the business significance of retrospection calls and how they help to improve processes within the company.