I didn’t know what a Retrospective was — capital R, Agile term, dedicated event — until I was nearly nine years into running this business. But when I finally learned what a Retrospective actually was, what struck me wasn’t how new it felt, but rather, how familiar it felt. I had already been building something like it into my own workflow, alone, for years: pausing after a proposal cycle to ask myself what worked, what didn’t, and what I wanted to carry forward. I just didn’t have a name for it.

That’s the part I want other solo consultants to hear. You don’t need the vocabulary, the Scrum training, or a team around the table to start retrospecting. You need the habit of stopping and looking back before you rush into what’s next.

Looking back now, I’m convinced that early, unnamed practice is exactly how I grew into someone who could lead a team through real Retrospective events later on. By the time DH Leonard Consulting was big enough to have a team, reflection wasn’t a foreign discipline I had to sell anyone on — it was already how I worked. Learning the formal Agile values and principles gave that instinct structure and a shared language. But the instinct, and understanding its value, came first, built solo.

So if you’re a team of one right now, don’t wait until you have a team to take reflection and retrospection seriously. Schedule the time anyway. It might be exactly what prepares you to grow into the next stage you want and even to lead a team through this practice someday.

If you want a place to start, we built a Retrospective Toolkit with facilitation tips, templates, and step-by-step instructions — download it here. The templates in it work whether you’re facilitating a room of ten or just yourself and a cup of coffee.

Catch up on the rest of the “20 Things I Have Learned” series here, and let me know: how do you make time for retrospection in your own work?