Remote Retrospectives That Actually Work

Most remote retrospectives are polite complaining sessions disguised as continuous improvement. Your distributed team gathers on Zoom, nods at cameras, adds generic feedback to digital whiteboards, then forgets everything until next sprint.

Sound familiar?

This week's content is designed to fix that dysfunction. Here's everything you need to run remote retrospectives that actually drive change instead of just making people feel heard:

Part 1: How to Stop Remote Retrospective Theater (Start Here) Stop the video call theater and start having uncomfortable conversations that fix distributed team problems. Includes the 3-step formula for remote retrospectives that work.

Part 2: The Uncomfortable Questions That Actually Fix Remote Retrospectives
The specific questions that surface real remote work problems instead of safe observations. Plus, how to create accountability that works across timezones.

Part 3: Advanced Remote Retrospective Psychology: When Basic Techniques Fail Advanced techniques, anti-patterns to avoid, and the psychology behind effective uncomfortable conversations in distributed teams.

5 Signs Your Remote Retrospective Is Just Video Call Theater Warning signs that reveal when you're documenting problems instead of solving them.

3-Step Remote Retrospective Fix Stop focusing on collaboration tools and start focusing on uncomfortable conversations.

The Remote Retrospective Questions That Surface Real Problems Replace generic questions with specific ones that identify remote work dysfunction.

How to Assign Remote Retrospective Action Items That Actually Get Done Create accountability that works across timezones instead of disappearing into shared docs.

3 Remote Retrospective Anti-Patterns That Kill Progress Recognize and fix the patterns that keep distributed teams stuck in dysfunction cycles.

The 5 Whys Technique for Remote Work Problems Dig deeper into root causes of distributed team issues instead of treating symptoms.

Pick ONE uncomfortable question from the series and use it in your next remote retrospective:

Watch how the conversation changes when you ask specific questions about remote work reality instead of generic "how did we do?" prompts.

As a subscriber you can now get all The Cranky PM free downloads in one place:

Real remote retrospectives hurt a little. They should make you squirm occasionally in your home office. They should force conversations you'd rather have in private DMs.

That's how you know they're working across timezones.