Term Retrospective

Team, with one individual page per student·Fall·3% of the fall grade

• Term RetrospectiveWeek 9, Wednesday before Thanksgiving·Rubric

Week 9 is a three-day week, and the sprint this reflects on closed with Sprint Note 3 in week 8, so Monday to Wednesday is enough for a 60-to-90-minute session and a short write-up.

Up to 48 hours late loses one rubric band on each criterion. After that it scores zero, unless you contacted the instructors before the deadline with a documented reason.

Ten weeks in, your team has real patterns: things you do well without noticing and things that hurt every sprint. The retrospective is where you name them while there’s still time to act, because winter starts a few weeks after finals with the same people and a harder job.

Fall uses the 4Ls format: Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed for. Run the session as a team (the Retrospectives guide has the four dimensions and how to facilitate), then write up what came out of it. Run it under the retrospective prime directive, which assumes everyone did the best they could with what they knew at the time. That’s not politeness: a session where people expect blame produces a sanitized list, and a sanitized list gives you nothing to act on.

What You Produce

One document (2 pages of team content plus individual pages), kept with your team’s documents, not in the repository. NDA teams reference work by title or ID only.

Start from the retrospective template.

AI use: AI may help you structure and phrase the write-up. It cannot attend your retrospective, and it must not invent artifacts or soften findings.

1. Themes (from the 4Ls)

Distill the session into 2 or 3 themes: patterns, each seen in more than one event during the term, not a list of events. For each theme, give a cause in how the team works (communication, decision-making, workload, review habits), and back it with 1 to 3 lightweight artifacts: a PR link with a one-line caption, a board snapshot, a legible screenshot of a decision thread. If a link is private, include a snippet so graders can evaluate it.

2. Team Actions

Three actions the team commits to for winter. Each has:

• A single owner (a name, not “the team”)
• A timeframe (“by winter week 3”, “starting sprint 1”)
• A plain-language recognition cue for how you will know it is working (“review turnaround usually same day”, “stand-up under ten minutes”)

Actions should trace back to your themes. An action that changes how work merges lands in CONTRIBUTING.md, which every repo checkpoint reads.

3. Individual Pages

One short page per student, clearly labeled:

• 1 or 2 wins and 1 or 2 gaps from your own term, each tied to a concrete example (a PR, a review, a decision you drove or dodged)
• One commitment for winter that is realistic and checkable: what you will do differently, how progress will be visible, and by when

The individual page is graded on wins and gaps tied to concrete examples and one checkable commitment, not on how flattering it is. “I let review requests sit for days; I will clear my review queue before starting new work, visible in review timestamps” beats a paragraph of humble generalities.

What You Submit

The retrospective as one PDF, with the cover Submitting Your Work describes.

Rubric

Rubric: 100 points across 5 criteria

Criterion	Ratings
Themes: recurring patterns, not a status list25 pointsOutcomes: SO5	Exceeds Expectations (25)Two or three patterns, each seen in more than one event during the term and each with a cause in how the team works (communication, decision-making, workload, review habits), written as themes rather than the session's raw notes. Meets Expectations (20)Patterns are named, but there is only one or there are more than three, at least one is a single event rather than a pattern, or a cause names nothing about how the team works. Does Not Meet Expectations (5)A list of what happened during the term, with no synthesis into patterns.
Evidence: artifacts with captions20 pointsOutcomes: SO3	Exceeds Expectations (20)Every theme carries at least one artifact (a pull request, a board snapshot, a legible decision thread) with a caption saying what it shows. Private links include a snippet graders can read. Meets Expectations (16)Most themes carry an artifact, or a caption states what the artifact is rather than what it shows. Does Not Meet Expectations (4)Themes are asserted with no artifacts, or the artifacts cannot be opened by a grader.
Team actions: owned, time-bound, traceablethree, each owned, time-bound, with a recognition cue, and traceable to a theme20 pointsOutcomes: SO2	Exceeds Expectations (20)Three actions, each with a single named owner, a timeframe, a plain-language recognition cue for how the team will know it is working, and a visible trace back to one of the themes. Meets Expectations (16)Three actions, but an owner is "the team", a timeframe is missing, or a recognition cue is not something anyone could observe. Does Not Meet Expectations (4)Fewer than three actions, or actions with no owner, no timing, and no connection to a theme.
Individual pages: wins, gaps, one checkable commitmentwins and gaps tied to concrete examples, plus one checkable commitment, per student25 pointsOutcomes: SO3	Exceeds Expectations (25)Every student has a labeled page with one or two wins and one or two gaps, each tied to a concrete example (a pull request, a review, a decision they drove or dodged), plus one winter commitment that says what the student will do differently, how progress will be visible, and by when. Meets Expectations (20)Pages are present for every student, but a win or gap names no example, or the commitment leaves out what the student will do differently, how progress will be visible, or by when. Does Not Meet Expectations (5)A student's page is missing, or the page is general reflection with no examples and no commitment. Scored per student, so this costs that student rather than the team.
Writing: length, sections, claims tied to examples10 pointsOutcomes: SO3	Exceeds Expectations (10)Within 2 pages of team content, sectioned by heading, and every claim names the example it rests on. Meets Expectations (8)One of the three missing. Does Not Meet Expectations (2)Two or more of the three missing.

The individual-pages criterion is scored per student; a missing individual page, or one whose wins and gaps name no example, costs that student, not the team.

Winter and spring

Winter’s retrospective is the Incident Postmortem, one concrete failure analyzed. Spring’s is the Project Retrospective, the cross-year story.

Activities That Prepare This

Learning Journal for the individual pages, and External Feedback Session for the evidence criterion. Your term’s teamwork assessment feeds the themes.

Browse Learning and Reflection and Presenting when these run out.