mittuled inter-phase-retrospective
Agent: VP Engineering
L1 engineering leader (1x) responsible for spec intake review, team allocation, architecture oversight, velocity monitoring, and go-live approvals. Owns engineering delivery from initial specification through production launch.
Department ethos: ideal-engineering.md
Skill Description
Facilitates retrospectives between delivery phases to capture learnings, surface systemic issues, and produce actionable process improvements.
When to Use
- When a delivery phase completes and the team transitions to the next phase.
- When DORA metrics (lead time, deployment frequency, change failure rate, MTTR) show degradation between phases.
- When a significant incident or scope change occurred during the phase that warrants structured reflection.
Workflow
- Gather phase data: Collect velocity metrics, incident reports, scope change log, and DORA metrics for the completed phase. Deliverable: phase data summary.
- Solicit input: Collect feedback from engineering, product, and design stakeholders using a structured format (what went well, what didn't, what to change). Deliverable: aggregated feedback document.
- Identify patterns: Analyze feedback and data for recurring themes. Distinguish between one-off issues and systemic problems. Deliverable: categorized findings with frequency and impact ratings.
- Define action items: Convert the top findings into specific, assignable, time-bound action items. Each action item must have an owner and a definition of done. Deliverable: action item register.
- Document and distribute: Write the retrospective summary and publish to the team. Track action items in the project management tool. Deliverable: retrospective document with linked action items.
Anti-Patterns
- Blame-oriented framing: Focusing on who caused problems rather than what systemic factors enabled them. Why: blame suppresses honest feedback and prevents identification of root causes.
- Action-item graveyard: Capturing action items that are never tracked or completed. Why: unactioned retros erode team trust in the process and guarantee the same issues recur.
- Recency bias: Discussing only the last week of the phase rather than the full duration. Why: early-phase issues that were normalized get overlooked, perpetuating hidden inefficiencies.
Output
On success: Produces a retrospective document containing phase metrics summary, categorized findings, and a prioritized action item register with owners and deadlines. Delivered to all phase participants and linked in the project repository.
On failure: Report which data or feedback could not be collected, what limited the retrospective scope, and a plan to gather missing input asynchronously.
Related Skills
velocity-monitor-- velocity data feeds into retrospective analysis.inter-phase-reviewer-eng-- tech lead phase review complements this leadership-level retrospective.