[mpdehaan2]

That long grooming session IS 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.

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.

Again, if you need status on something, don'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.

The team's velocity is what it is - retrospectives can be boiled down to a "hey, how are things working out" that you can fit into a standard team meeting IMHO. Doesn't need it's own time slot, and this can also prevent retros turning into "throw X under the bus / CYA" type meetings. You can also get a lot of this from 1:1 conversations, and probably in greater depth in that context.