Pull up the actions from your last four retrospectives. Read them side by side.
If you're seeing "improve communication with the client", "get designs signed off earlier" and "better estimates" appearing over and over, congratulations. You've been running the same retro for a year.
It's one of the quietest signs of a bad PM, because on the surface they're doing everything right. Retros are booked. Sticky notes are stuck. Actions are written up and shared. All the process is there. Nothing actually changes.
Why it happens
The actions are too vague to act on. "Improve communication" isn't an action. It's a wish. Nobody can do it on a Tuesday afternoon, so nobody does.
The actions belong to everyone, which means they belong to no one. "The team will..." is a lovely sentiment and a guaranteed way for nothing to happen.
Nobody checks. The next retro starts fresh, with a new board and new sticky notes, and last time's actions are never mentioned again.
And sometimes the real causes aren't safe to say. If the honest answer is "the PM keeps agreeing to things without asking us", that's a hard sticky note to write when the PM is the one holding the pen.
How to spot it
Compare retro actions across a few months. Repeats are the giveaway.
Look for names next to actions. If there aren't any, nothing's going to happen.
Notice whether retros open by reviewing the last set of actions. If they don't, nobody's accountable for them.
And look for the PM in the actions. A team doesn't go a year without the PM contributing to at least one problem. If their name never appears, either they're perfect, or nobody feels able to say it.
The PM goes first
A retro that never criticises the PM isn't a sign of a great PM. It's a sign of a team that doesn't feel safe enough to.
The best PMs I've worked with went out of their way to invite it. They'd put their own mistakes on the board first. They'd ask what they could have done differently and actually wait for an answer, which is harder than it sounds. Once the PM goes first, everyone else finds it much easier to be honest.
What good looks like
Fewer actions, but real ones. Specific, small enough to actually do, with a name and a date next to each. The next retro opens by checking what happened to them. If something didn't get done, you talk about why, rather than quietly writing it down again.
It's less satisfying than a wall full of sticky notes. It's also how teams actually get better.
A retro that changes nothing isn't a retro. It's a recurring meeting with arts and crafts.