During a time when most people are working from home, it is important to know how to keep your team motivated and productive. When working remotely, team members need guidance and understanding of the general goals at hand. That is why holding remote retrospective meetings can not only help your team to stay productive but can also continue to build your company and create success within your team.  

A remote sprint retrospective can be run with the help of video conferencing tools as well as yours truly GoRetro. The goal of a remote retrospective is to allow your team to meet remotely from wherever they are and reflect on work they have done, as well as looking into how they can continue to succeed in the future.  

But how should a remote retrospective meeting look? What are the best ways to keep everyone motivated and on-task?Here are some basic tips and tricks for running a successful remote retrospective and keeping your team on task and working towards goals.

1. Ensure engagement and attendance from every team member. This is very important because if the entire team is not involved, your meeting will not be as successful as it could be. By ensuring that each member is engaged and has a role in the retrospective meeting, you can trust that your meeting will run smoothly, and the outcome will be much better.
2. Review the previous sprint and what was accomplished. Your retrospective should not take too long. Around an hour to an hour and a half tops, with the majority of the time spent on discussions. At the beginning of the meeting, there should be a quick summary of the previous sprint. This should include what the goal and plan were, how they were carried out, and what the outcomes were. By including this, your team is then able to discuss where to go from there. You are able to include what went well and what didn’t go so well from the last sprint and formulate a new strategy from there.
3. Hold an open-ended discussion with your entire team. This is the majority of the retrospective and the most important part. The reason it should remain open-ended is so that everyone can participate and engage. The discussion should include new goals and new strategies your team plans to use to accomplish those goals.
4. Create an action plan for the future. The main goal of remote retrospectives is to create actionable plans for future sprints. By looking at past sprints and planning for the future, your team should be able to create success and growth for your company. 

A remote retrospective can be an extremely useful and important tool, especially with most people working from home right now. By holding a productive retro, your company is likely to prosper and grow in the near future. Especially when done correctly.

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