Why do we have to do Retrospective meeting??!!

 

When I was working at a well-known bank in BGC, at the end of our product release sprint, my leads had scheduled a retrospective meeting. The first thing that came to my mind was the title of this article. Why?

"It's for us to discuss what actions are made resulting for the project's success, what went wrong, and what can be done in the future for developments." This is what our Test lead told us. "An extra brainstorming activity" as we say. 

Okay, I'll give you this fact, I'm too lazy to think about that stuff because I didn't think that it would affect me since I'm a contractor, and a few more days then I'm out of the team because my end of contract is near. Why should I make an effort? I don't want to attend either!

But of course, I attended. It's only a Zoom meeting anyway. I have quite a lot of positive ones to say, a few on the negatives, and nothing on the suggestions (good thing it's not required to have one for each!) So, I assume it all went well.

As I look back, I'm asking myself why didn't I gave a good suggestion for the project's development? Well, they have plenty of suggestions, my team mates had, but why didn't I? I remember trying to think hard about it but nothing came. It's like a bulb in my head cannot be turned on because there's no electricity to which light could be generated. I feel so dumb and I think I'm not smart.

As I sat and thought about it more, the problem is not me being unintelligent, but how much I cared to think for the project's future. They say that when you want it, possibilities are endless but if you don't, you are loaded with reasons. I may not have given any reason, but I'm sure that I don't want to do the meeting. Attending that meeting without the intention of being committed to it is my problem and that resulted to me not being prepared to inject ideas for the sole purpose.

What I'm trying to say is, if maybe I focused on the future outcome and had it in me the drive for development, I might had an idea to put on the suggestions list that could spare me from this daunting thought -that Retrospective meeting makes me look stupid.