That long grooming session <i>IS</i> a warning sign.  I recall working for one disaster where we were required to have one grooming session for us (1 hour) and then it got re-groomed the same week where we heard all the tickets again.<p>It should be sufficient for someone to lead and assign tickets as they come in, and for people to talk to people and reassign them as needed.<p>Again, if you need status on something, don&#x27;t have a 2-3 hour long meeting, just ask... because when you have a long meeting and only 2 people out of, say, 8, are engaged at the same time, those other people are being very expensive and are getting bored fast.<p>The team&#x27;s velocity is what it is - retrospectives can be boiled down to a &quot;hey, how are things working out&quot; that you can fit into a standard team meeting IMHO.  Doesn&#x27;t need it&#x27;s own time slot, and this can also prevent retros turning into &quot;throw X under the bus &#x2F; CYA&quot; type meetings.  You can also get a lot of this from 1:1 conversations, and probably in greater depth in that context.