Retro meetings are useful but I think some people do them wrong.

First off, who remembers shit from a week or two ago? We started a document at the start of the sprint so we could add stuff throughout the sprint as it happened. Made it easy to remember and actually talk about stuff.

Secondly, retro meetings should typically get shorter the longer you're on a team. You use the meetings to find out what works for you and then most of the rest of the time it's a short meeting unless there are issues to talk about.

And no one should be forced to participate. After a while there usually isn't anything in particular to comment on.

So, a brand new team might have a lot to talk about for the first couple of retros because they do things slightly differently (how they go about determining risks, how people pick up peer reviews, etc) but after identifying those problem areas in the retros it should be pretty smooth sailing.

I know every now and then I have to reiterate to my team that they need to prioritize peer reviews. You can't let 5-8 stack up just because you don't want to do them or whatever other reason they have. Thankfully I finally have someone on my team who gets just as annoyed with them as I do so I don't have to always be the broken record.