# Use Swarmia in meetings and team rituals Swarmia works best when it's part of the meetings your team already runs — not a separate dashboard to check occasionally. Teams that improve the most bring data into conversations they're already having, rather than adding new ones. ## Retrospectives Retrospectives are the highest-leverage entry point for Swarmia data. The best ones share three qualities: blameless, fact-based, and actionable. **Blameless:** A long-running task or slow PR isn't someone's fault — it reflects how the team organized its work. Keep the focus on process, not people. **Fact-based:** A shared fact base helps the team identify what went well and what could improve. Data makes the conversation more focused and harder to dismiss on gut feel alone. **Actionable:** Teams often struggle to turn retrospective discussions into change. Having the right data and tools available makes the difference between a good conversation and an actual improvement. ### **Before the retrospective** Check [cycle time](https://help.swarmia.com/features/metrics/code-metrics) trends, [working agreement](https://help.swarmia.com/continuous-improvement/working-agreements) performance, and the [work log](https://help.swarmia.com/use-cases/improve-your-teams-focus/analyzing-the-activity-patterns-on-work-log) for signs of siloed work, days without progress, or too much reactive work. Pick one or two specific data points to bring into the room — a PR that sat open for nine days, a sprint where WIP crept up, a team member carrying most of the review load. ### **During the retrospective** Use data to open the discussion rather than asking how the sprint felt. Dig into outliers — was that PR too large in scope? Was it hard to get a review? The data doesn't replace the conversation; it gives it a starting point that's harder to dismiss. End with a concrete working agreement — something like "PRs reviewed within 24 hours" or "no PR open longer than 7 days." ### **After the retrospective** The daily [team notifications](https://help.swarmia.com/settings/team/team-notifications) digest keeps agreements visible and surfaces slippage before the next meeting. If the team set a PR age or review time agreement, expect to see results within a week. ### Read more * [How to run developer survey retrospectives in your team](https://www.swarmia.com/blog/developer-survey-retrospectives/) * [Reduce bias in retrospectives with better data](https://www.swarmia.com/blog/data-driven-retrospectives-stop-fake-improvements/) * [How we run retrospectives in Swarmia](https://www.swarmia.com/blog/how-we-use-swarmia-at-swarmia/#running-retrospectives) ## 1-on-1s 1-on-1s get more concrete when you have data to open with. The [developer overview](https://help.swarmia.com/features/coach-software-developers) gives managers a view into individual work patterns, contribution history, and focus areas. This data is also visible to the engineer — so the conversation is based on shared information, not a hidden report. The goal is to ask questions, not make judgments; the engineer provides the context. Look beyond individual output too: who this person collaborated with, how their work fit into the team's delivery, what types of tasks they worked on, and how their time split across new features, improvements, and maintenance. That paints a fuller picture than any single metric. Instead of "how's it going?", you can ask: * "Your PRs have been sitting in review for a few days — is something blocking you?" * "You've been spread across three initiatives this sprint — is the context switching manageable?" * "Your work log shows a lot of maintenance work this month — is that what you expected?" ## Standups Standups stay focused on problem-solving when managers review the daily [team notifications](https://help.swarmia.com/continuous-improvement/team-notifications) digest beforehand. It surfaces stuck PRs and at-risk agreements before they need to be raised in the meeting — shifting the standup from status-sharing to unblocking work. ## Director and leadership check-ins Get a clear picture of engineering progress without attending standups or reading status reports. The key questions at this level are: * Are our cross-team initiatives on track? * Where is engineering effort actually going? * Is maintenance work crowding out new product work? * Is the organization getting more effective over time? The right views for answering these are [initiative tracking](https://help.swarmia.com/use-cases/deliver-strategic-initiatives) and [investment balance](https://help.swarmia.com/use-cases/balance-engineering-investments) — more useful than asking each EM for a status update. Focus on "are things improving over time?" rather than "which team is fastest this week?" — trend data matters more than snapshots. --- # Agent Instructions: Querying This Documentation If you need additional information that is not directly available in this page, you can query the documentation dynamically by asking a question. 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