Who Needs Action Items?

I kinda think you should just sack off the retro action item.

We all wanna be productive. We wanna do things. Make decisions, move things forward - just like all the startup books say. So we decided, as an industry, that every meeting must justify its existence with a little pile of things to do. Especially retros.

You’ve had a decent conversation. A few people have been brave enough to say something not entirely positive. Someone flagged that a handover felt bad. Someone else mentioned that the sprint was disjointed and weird. There’s a sense, unspoken, that maybe people are a little tired, a little misaligned, a little over it. Tuesday ya know?

And then someone asks: “So, what are the action items?”

We take that mostly human conversation about mostly human things and turn it into a set of things to be done. “Communicate more”. Great.

Most of the useful things that come out of a retro aren’t things you do, they’re things you realise. They’re cultural. Relational. They’re feelings. Vibes. Pattern recognition across the messy terrain of human interaction counting down the days until they run out of money.

And even when you can pull something practical out, I wonder if you really should?

Because if every uncomfortable truth gets turned into a task, you start to disincentivise discomfort. You encourage people to only raise the things they already know how to fix. Or worse, you turn vulnerability into a job: “Thanks for sharing your concern, now you’re responsible for solving it.”

Eventually, people stop bringing anything that actually matters and it’ll all be fluff. No one wants to accidentally become the owner of “improve emotional tone in retros (Q3 OKR)”.

So here’s a thought: what if the retro didn’t have to end tidily?

What if the goal was never to leave with a plan?

What if the goal was simply to surface some vibes? To say things out loud. To be witnessed in how you’re experiencing the work. To offer that same witnessing in return.

A shared nod. A “me too.” A laugh about how weird that ticket ended up being. A little sigh of relief that no, it wasn’t just you.

It doesn’t need a follow-up doc. It needs a moment of human connection.

Action is easy. Reflection is hard. It takes more effort to see clearly than it does to do quickly. And retros should be the place where that clarity is allowed to show up even if it doesn’t go anywhere straight away.

I should stress, that doesn’t mean you never change anything. Sometimes something obvious will fall out: “Let’s stop doing that.” “Let’s try this instead.” “Let’s never let coops write the release notes again.”

Fine. Great. Action away, rocket emoji.

But don’t force it. Don’t let your well intentioned urge to do something stop people from saying anything.