Events

Agile Brazil 2010 – Part 4: Retrospectives with Hugo Corbucci and Mariana Bravo

Transform good teams into great teams—master the 5-phase retrospective framework that turns reflection into action, complaints into insights, and meetings into meaningful growth experiences

Series: Agile Brazil 2010 | Part 4 of 6 > Complete coverage of Brazil’s first national agile conference

And it just finish one more great presentation, notebook full of scribbles from the Retrospectives session led by Hugo Corbucci and Mariana Bravo. It wasn’t just another talk — it was a show where we learned to think differently about one of the most underestimated and underutilized agile practices: the retrospective.

Retrospective ≠ Status Meeting

One of the first things Hugo and Mariana clarified — and repeated like a mantra — is that a retrospective is not a status meeting. It’s not about updates, metrics, or even progress in the classic sense. It’s a space for reflection, learning, and growth. A safe space.

They anchored the session on the book Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great, by Esther Derby, Diana Larsen, and Ken Schwaber. That subtitle — “making good teams great” — stayed in my head all day. Because that’s exactly what retrospectives can do when taken seriously.

They showed us how retrospectives can unlock growth, collaboration, and even healing in teams that need to reconnect with their mission and with each other.

The Five Phases of a Good Retrospective

We went step by step through the model from the book. Each phase was explained, contextualized, and explored through group activities. The sequence was:

  1. Set the Stage – Create psychological safety and make sure everyone is mentally present.
  2. Gather Data – Look at facts and feelings from the iteration.
  3. Generate Insights – Identify patterns and root causes, not just symptoms.
  4. Decide What to Do – Turn insights into actions, small and concrete.
  5. Close the Retrospective – Reflect on the session and thank the group.

Each part had its own dynamic. We did warm-up exercises to set the stage. In the “gather data” segment, we tried timelines, emotion charts, and simple post-it collections. These helped us look not only at what happened, but how we experienced it.

What Stuck with Me

During the “generate insights” part, Mariana asked a powerful question: “Why do you think this keeps happening?” That prompt alone helped our table unlock a whole thread of thoughts we had never connected. The mood in the room shifted. People weren’t solving problems anymore — they were understanding them.

We did one activity where we grouped cards into causes, symptoms, and consequences. It was chaotic, but illuminating. What looked like simple complaints — “we had too many bugs” — evolved into discussions about knowledge silos, lack of pair programming, and brittle legacy code. Real causes, real insights.

And at the “decide what to do” stage, Hugo challenged us: “What can you commit to, in the next 48 hours?” That urgency reframed things. Instead of planning huge process changes, we thought smaller — but more doable. Someone suggested rotating the facilitator role. Another proposed a 15-min code cleanup block per day. Small steps. Real impact.

Beyond Sticky Notes

This wasn’t just about templates or checklists. Hugo and Mariana made retrospectives feel alive. They showed us how to shift from passive formats to dynamic ones. They shared stories of teams that reclaimed trust and engagement just by investing in better retros.

At one point, Mariana said: “A team that can talk honestly is a team that can grow safely.” I kept thinking about teams I had worked on, where the retrospective felt more like a chore than a learning space. Now I understand why: no framing, no creativity, no safety.

We practiced how to close a retrospective too — something that often gets skipped. Saying thank you. Asking what could be improved about the retro itself. It felt simple but grounded. And real.

Design Your Retrospective, Don’t Just Run It

One lesson I’m taking with me is that a retrospective isn’t just another recurring meeting. It’s an event worth designing. That means understanding the mood, the history, the tensions. Picking activities that help surface what matters. Using time wisely. And, above all, caring about the experience the team will have.

We ended with a short discussion about anti-patterns: forced timelines, facilitators who talk too much, and the dreaded “we never follow up.” Hugo reminded us: “Even if your action item fails, the reflection still matters.”

One More Book for the Backpack

As we closed, they pointed again to the book — Agile Retrospectives — and encouraged us not to copy-paste formats, but to read it with our teams in mind. To design with empathy. To host retrospectives with courage.

I walked out not just thinking about how to run better retros, but about how to help others want to participate. It’s not about perfect formats. It’s about care, attention, listening, and learning — as a group.

Thank you Mariana. Thank you Hugo. What a powerful session.

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