3 Challenges When Creating Action Items

**By Moye Balogun**

A key
artifact when finishing a retrospective is a “clear list of action items”
(Rose). Action items are important because they are changes that should be
implemented in the next sprint to remedy the problems that arose in the
previous sprint. Action items should not be generic, but should resemble SMART
goals in that they are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and
Time-Boxed (Rose). The issue with action items is that teams often struggle to
extract actual actions from the conversations they are having. There are 3
challenges that can arise when creating action items.

happen with a group had a sprint with many problems and has approached discussing
them with a negative attitude. In this circumstance, it is the facilitator’s
job to only encourage input that can result in improvement and direct the team
to focus on potential solutions instead (Rose). This can be done through
deliberate techniques such as how questions are worded (Rogalsky). Instead of
the facilitator telling the team to write “what went well,” they can ask them
to finish the sentence “[the sprint] was great because…” (Rogalsky). Then to
get the negative feedback, but in a constructive manner, the facilitator can
ask the group to write “What they would do differently next time” (Rogalsky).

(1)

### **2) Too Much Action, Not Enough Talk**

This
challenge is the opposite of the Kvetrospective. Though action items are
important, action without thought usually provides disastrous results. This
situation usually comes about when a team can easily identify what their
problems or challenges are, but are failing to understand why they are
occurring (Rose). For example, in Doug Rose’s video seminar about Agile
retrospectives he brings up the situation of a team whose task board was not up
to date. Immediately, developers on the team suggested a task board software
that could be viewed from numerous devices, show the task board history, edit
changes, fix mistakes, etc. and the entire team was on board to download the software
when the facilitator had to step in (Rose). The facilitator pointed out to them
that they had yet to understand *why*
the task board was not up to date (Rose). Eventually, the team discovered it
was because team members were not doing their work in the same place (Rose).
Consequently, the action item they created was for all team members to be in a
shared working environment in the next sprint (Rose).

(2)

### **3) It All Depends on the Scrum Master**

This challenge arises when the Scrum Master decides to
take all the action items for themselves. Though the team may not mind, this
goes against the key Agile characteristic of having teams that self-organize.
If the Scrum Master is in charge of delivering the action items, then the team
is no longer responsible for their own improvement (Rose). Instead they are
relying on the Scrum Master and will end up waiting on her to finish their
tasks. This removes the creative liberty and shared responsibility the team
should have over their own progress (Rose). To remedy this, the facilitator
should have the Scrum Master not attend a few of the retrospectives (Rose).
This will force the team to reflect amongst themselves and no longer rely on
someone else to do all their work for them.

(3)

**Works Cited**

Rogalsky,
Steve. “Running a Positive Retrospective (and Avoiding a Gripe Session) - DZone
Agile.” *Dzone.com*, 3 Oct. 2013,
dzone.com/articles/running-positive-retrospective.

Rose,
Doug. “Create Clear Action Items.” *Lynda.com - from LinkedIn*, 4
Feb. 2016, www.lynda.com/Business-Skills-tutorials/Create-clear-action-items/175961/468254-4.html.

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