During a warming-center reservation team's retrospective, the coach opens with, "Why did you fail again?" What is the problem with that question, and what should replace it?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
"Why did you fail again?" is a prosecutor, not a coach. Warming-center staff already know the night went badly; they need curiosity that opens the system, not a spotlight on shame. A better question hunts causes and next experiments.
Full Explanation
“Why did you fail again?” is a blaming interrogation that destroys retrospective safety. On a warming-center reservation team, that opener invites defensiveness instead of learning about shelter access for vulnerable residents during cold weather. The Scrum Master/Team Coach should replace it with curious, non-blaming questions that explore what happened in the system and what experiment to try next.
Replacing it with a written reprimand so the team feels the miss fails by concept: punishment is not inspect-and-adapt and suppresses candor about reservation failures. Repeating the blame via the Release Train Engineer at Inspect and Adapt fails by concept by scaling fear to the ART. Sending blame as an anonymous survey fails by concept: anonymity does not convert interrogation into learning if the frame remains punitive.
Exam caveat: SAFe retrospectives and Inspect and Adapt require psychological safety; blaming questions are explicitly poor coaching practice on advanced Scrum Master assessments. Accountability remains—through transparent goals and experiments—not through shaming warming-center staff.
Operational check: rewrite the retrospective opener to a systems-focused question, facilitate one blameless experiment after a miss, model appreciation for candor, and verify broader participation and clearer improvement items in the next retrospective.