Retrospective methods

A method for sharing what happened and what you learned, in a way that stays enjoyable. It came out of the Scrum Coaches Retreat in Okinawa in 2018. Sort what happened during the sprint into Fun, Done and Learn. Treat it as a place for praise, where anyone can speak up easily.

Useful when the team has accumulated too many rules. Things you do without thinking can turn out to be empty ritual. It also works for generating new ideas.

A method for sharing thanks with your teammates. Recognising each other's contributions brings the team closer. A positive retrospective that lifts the team's spirits.

A method for surfacing the team's problems and what people really think. It faces the things nobody says out loud and the problems everyone has been carrying. It raises psychological safety and opens up honest conversation.

A method for tightening a team that has already grown together. Reviewing your work from five different angles surfaces improvements in more detail. Keep, less of, start, stop and more of gives you a many-sided view.

A method for grasping where the team stands and finding problems and improvements. The hot air balloon metaphor makes the team's strengths and difficulties visible. Useful for solving problems and planning what to do next.

A method for sharing three feelings about what happened during the sprint: glad, hard and sad. People feel things differently, and those differences are worth keeping.

A retrospective built on the fairy tale of the three little pigs. Sort out how steady the team's work and process are, and make the fragile parts, the parts with room to improve and the parts that are going well visible, in a way that stays enjoyable.

A retrospective where you beat a monster and grow. Casting the team's problems as a monster and working out how to defeat (solve) it makes problem-solving enjoyable. What is already good becomes your equipment, and what you want to try or improve becomes exploration.

A retrospective built on a sea voyage. Picture the team as a boat, and sort out the wind that helps it along, the anchor (problems) holding it back, and the rocks (risks) on the route. Seeing what slows the voyage and what speeds it up makes it easier to decide what to improve to reach the island the team is heading for.

4L is a retrospective for looking back on a period — a sprint or a project — and deepening what you learned. Sorting it into Liked, Learned, Lacked and Longed for gets you past judging events, to the insight you gained and what to carry forward. It suits turning a team's experience into learning.

Everyone posts a retrospective theme anonymously, then one is drawn at random and the whole team discusses it. Because nobody knows who wrote what, honest themes come out, and the conversation stays safe. Leaving it to the draw can land you on an unexpected theme and a deeper conversation.

A method for freely throwing out wild, ridiculous, silly ideas. Even an impossible idea can turn into something unique with a small change. It gets you looking at your project with fresh eyes, which helps when things have grown stale. Inspired by Humor, Seriously.

Each person writes a wish they want granted on a strip of paper, and everyone links what they can do to make it happen. Because it deals with personal wishes rather than team goals, it becomes a place to offer what you can do for someone else. It is the same shape as the magpies bridging the way for the two stars at Tanabata. Inspired by Why Is Your Team Tired?