Retrospective formats guide
Running Start/Stop/Continue every sprint is the fastest way to kill engagement. Here are 12 formats worth rotating through — and when each one earns its place.
Updated
Start / stop / continue
When to use it: Default for new teams or noisy sprints. Low cognitive load.
How to run it: Three columns. 5 min silent ideation, 10 min grouping, dot vote, discuss top 3.
4Ls — liked, learned, lacked, longed for
When to use it: End of project or major release. Reflective tone.
How to run it: Four quadrants. Encourages emotional and learning-oriented input, not just process.
Sailboat
When to use it: When team morale is mixed and you want a visual metaphor.
How to run it: Anchors (what slows us), wind (what helps), rocks (risks), island (goal). Great for visual thinkers.
Mad / sad / glad
When to use it: When emotional safety is high and trust needs reinforcing.
How to run it: Three columns by emotion. Powerful for surfacing interpersonal friction early.
DAKI — drop, add, keep, improve
When to use it: When the team is improvement-focused and time-boxed.
How to run it: Direct and action-biased. Excellent when you want concrete commitments.
Lean coffee
When to use it: Sprints with no clear theme. Lets the team set the agenda.
How to run it: Generate topics, dot vote, discuss top items in 5-min boxes with thumbs vote to extend.
Lightning decision jam
When to use it: When retros keep producing lists but no decisions.
How to run it: Identify problems → reframe as challenges → solutions → effort/impact → action plan in 60 min.
Glad / sad / mad / afraid
When to use it: Post-incident or after a difficult quarter.
How to run it: Adds 'Afraid' to surface unspoken risks. Use sparingly — emotionally heavy.
The three little pigs
When to use it: Discussing technical debt or fragility.
How to run it: Straw (will collapse), sticks (shaky), bricks (solid). Great for engineering teams.
WRAP — worked, restricted, achieved, plan
When to use it: Quarterly or release retros for senior teams.
How to run it: Strategic flavour. Surfaces blockers and forward-looking commitments.
Appreciation retro
When to use it: After heroic effort, before holidays, or when burnout is rising.
How to run it: Each member writes appreciations for every other member. Read aloud. Skip 'what to improve' entirely.
Futurespective
When to use it: Before kicking off a new initiative.
How to run it: Imagine the project is over and successful — work backwards. Surfaces hidden assumptions.
Rotating formats is easier when they ship as templates
The whole point of the twelve formats above is rotation — same format every sprint produces the same answers. Rebuilding each one by hand is what kills the habit, so a deep template library matters more than it looks. Tools like EasyRetro, TeamRetro and Neatro ship most of these formats ready to run, so switching from Sailboat to 4Ls to Lean Coffee is a dropdown, not a setup task. You can compare template-library depth across every tool in the tool directory.
Related reading
A format is only half the job — how you run it decides whether it lands. The facilitation tips guide covers the habits that make any of these formats work, and if you’re still evaluating options, how to choose a retro tool walks through the criteria that matter beyond the template count.