To make the retrospective effective, the team should identify the action items. This gives a platform to the team to start a conversation, but only identifying will not serve the purpose. The action items should be targeted for closure and scrum master should take steps in realizing this goal. For every action item, there should be an owner, TEAMS should refrain from assigning multiple owners to a single item as the idea of ownership dilutes. The scrum master should manage the REPOSITORY of action items on a tool or an EXCEL which is accessible to all the team members. Having a backlog of action items also helps as then the team can actually prioritize.

In the retrospective meeting, the team should go through the items from the last retrospective and talk about its status, in that way everyone can keep track of where they are and what more is required to ACHIEVE the goal of closure. Few organizations use retrospective tracker where the action items are categorized into – priority, ownership, status, description, identified on, type. Working on the actions items gives the team a boost that they are moving forward towards improvement and also it enhances the sense of ownership.