Retrospectives: Top 5 Templates That Work

A Deep Dive into Retrospectives

The success mantra for any business today is continual introspection, tweaking strategies, and fine-tuning processes. Retrospectives or retrospective meetings are potent tools to nurture this culture. They are geared towards thoughtful reflection and analysis, providing the team an opportunity to look back on specific timelines, projects, or events. The goal is to improve future outcomes by gaining insights from what has worked and what hasn’t, brewing robust strategies, and fostering open communication within the team.

However, retrospectives can turn tedious and ineffective without the right structure. This is where templates come into play. Retrospective templates structure your team’s discussions, focusing on extracting valuable learnings. They also add an element of innovation and novelty, preventing the meetings from becoming monotonous. With an abundance of templates available, how do you zero in on the ones that will truly facilitate your team’s growth?

Continue reading as we delve into five tested and trusted retrospective templates to make your retros more engaging and impactful!

Template 1: Start, Stop, Continue

The ‘Start, Stop, Continue’ template is a classic tool in retrospectives. It uses the simplicity of language to help teams explore their strategies on three fronts. What should they start doing? What needs to be stopped? And what successful patterns should continue?

Here’s the breakdown:

• Start: These are often new ideas and strategies that the team should try out. These suggestions can be through brainstorming or individual suggestions.
• Stop: These are the practices that haven’t seen success or are deterring the team’s progress. Teams must be open to criticism and change.
• Continue: These are the practices that have proven successful and should be sustained in future projects.

This method’s beauty is its straightforwardness, making it easy for everyone to understand. It’s a powerhouse in fostering a culture of openness where the team assesses their strategies and practices regularly.

Template 2: The Sailboat

Looking for a fun and innovative way to structure your retrospectives? Let ‘The Sailboat’ float your boat. It uses nautical concepts as metaphors for project retrospectives. Here’s how it works:

• The Boat: This represents the team. Not everyone involved needs to be in the same room, as this can also work for remote teams.
• The Wind: This represents the driving forces that have positively propelled the team or project towards its goals.
• The Anchor: This symbolizes the factors that have hindered or slowed down their progress.
• The Island: This symbolizes the project’s goals or the team’s aim to work towards.

This template offers a creative lens through which the team can retrospect. Its visual nature makes it engaging and interesting, adding zest to your retrospectives.

Template 3: Mad, Sad, Glad

Emotions play a significant role in how we process and understand events. The ‘Mad, Sad, Glad’ template leverages these feelings and injects an emotional aspect into retrospectives. As the name suggests, team members share their thoughts categorized into these three buckets:

• Mad: Here, team members express practices or strategies that have upset or frustrated them.
• Sad: This category deals with disappointments or aspects that have brought sadness to the team.
• Glad: This category is for sharing things that satisfied or pleased the team.

Besides facilitating an honest discussion about the team’s performance, it pays attention to the members’ feelings, thereby addressing another critical aspect—employee engagement and morale.

Template 4: 4Ls— Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For

The ‘4Ls’ template provides a structured platform to express feedback and learnings from the project. This format encourages team members to deeply reflect on their personal experiences and share insights. The four categories include:

• Liked: It focuses on the successful and appreciated aspects of the project.
• Learned: Revelations, insights, or new skills gathered during the project’s course are discussed.
• Lacked: It states areas where the team fell short or missed the mark during the implementation.
• Longed For: Expectations or aspects that team members wished for, but didn’t happen, are shared.

This format promotes open communication by encouraging team members to express their personal experiences and insights. It helps to spot the hidden improvements that generally go unnoticed.

Template 5: SWOT Analysis

Finally, we have the SWOT analysis – a well-established method in the managerial world that is equally effective for retrospectives. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats— all self-explanatory:

• Strengths: This is where teams acknowledge what they are exceptionally good at or what offered them a competitive edge.
• Weaknesses: These are areas where improvement is needed.
• Opportunities: The team pinpoints external factors that could potentially benefit them.
• Threats: The team identifies external sources of peril and devises strategies to counter them.

By providing a comprehensive view of the team’s internal and external situation, this template helps in strategic planning, making the retrospective outcomes extremely actionable.

Wrapping Up

Retrospectives provide a safe and structured space for teams to reflect collectively, learn, and fine-tune their strategies. Incorporating templates into these sessions allows for a more focused, engaging, and effective discussion, ultimately promoting continuous improvement and a robust growth-oriented culture.

However, keep in mind that all teams are different, and so you must pick a template that best aligns with your team’s nature and needs. These five templates act as starting points in your search. By fine-tuning and personalizing them to suit your team, you can tap into the full potential of retrospectives. Remember, the best retros are those that adapt, evolve, and keep pace with your team’s growth.