Template

Sprint retrospective template

What went well, what did not, and the one or two changes you will actually make.

45 minutesFor Engineering and product teamsAgenda room
Change the agenda first

The agenda, with a time for each part

  1. What went well8 min
    • What should we keep doing?
    • What helped more than we expected?
  2. What did not10 min
    • What slowed us down?
    • What surprised us?
  3. What we learned8 min
    • What do we know now that we did not two weeks ago?
  4. What we will change next sprint12 min
    • Which one or two things will we change?
    • How will we know it worked?
  5. Who owns each change7 min
    • Who makes each change happen, and by when?

How the notes read afterwards

A made-up example, so you can see the shape. In a real call each line carries the words that were said and who said them.

Went well. Pairing on the import bug: fixed in a day instead of a week.

Did not. Three tickets changed scope after the sprint started.

We will change. Nothing joins the sprint after Monday unless something else leaves. Maya owns saying no.

Running it well

Ways to change it

Start, stop, continueThree columns instead of five items: what to start, what to stop, what to keep.
After a bad sprintSpend twice as long on what did not go well, and agree one change only.
Remote teamEverybody writes their points alone for five minutes first, so the loudest voice does not set the list.

When to skip it. Never two in a row. If the last retro's changes were not made, use the time to make them rather than list new ones.

Questions

How long should a sprint retrospective be?

Forty-five minutes for a two-week sprint is enough. Longer sprints can take an hour.

What makes a retrospective useful?

Ending with one or two changes, each with a name next to it, and checking them at the start of the next one.

What happens in the room

Everybody joins from the link, with no account. The agenda sits beside the call and each item fills in with what was said about it, under the name of the person who said it.

More templates

Sprint planningOne goal for the sprint, the work that serves it, and who takes what.Incident postmortemWhat happened, why, and what changes so it does not happen again — without blaming anybody.Product roadmap reviewWhat is being built next and why, what moved since last time, and what was cut to make room.Design reviewOne design, shown early, with the questions the designer actually wants answered.Backlog refinementGo through what is coming next, make each item small and clear enough to start, and throw out what will never be done.User research interviewOne customer, in their own words: what they were trying to do, what they did, and where it went wrong.Lessons learned meetingAt the end of a project: what to do again, what never to do again, and where those lessons will be kept so the next project finds them.Go/no-go meetingBefore a launch: each owner says ready or not ready, and one person makes the call.

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