One of the core components of team adaptation theory is that for teams to increase their adaptability (read: agility), they must reflect on past activities. If you look at any high performing team you will notice they all have one thing in common. All high performing teams take time to reflect on past activities so they can find ways to improve. This shouldn’t come as a surprise. All high performing teams do it. If you look at high performing teams in sports, business, law enforcement, the military, etc., then you will find teams that perform some type of retrospective. Those teams may not call it a retrospective, but they still reflect to answer the same basic questions: What did we do? What have we learned? What should we do differently? Where can we improve? Sadly, many teams view retrospectives with disdain. People are rarely motivated to do the hard work that retrospectives demand. The result is a meeting that produces very little in the way of learning let alone strengthening a team’s adaptability.