Retrospective Templates for Every Team

Templates give structure so teams do not stare at a blank board. Different formats suit different goals: process improvement, team health, release post-mortems, or innovation. RetroEP ships with 50+ layouts across classic, metaphor, process, timeline, fun, and values categories. A searchable picker lets facilitators type “sailboat” or “daki” and preview column colors before creating the room.

• Start / Stop / Continue — simple three-column classic
• Sailboat — wind, anchors, rocks, island
• 4Ls — Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed for
• Mad / Sad / Glad — emotional check-in
• Starfish — keep / less / more / start / stop
• Lean Coffee — topic-driven discussion
• DAKI — Drop, Add, Keep, Improve
• Waste Snake — lean waste lens
• ESVP — engagement check-in
• Pre-Mortem — imagine failure before launch

Also see Speed Car, Timeline, Plus/Delta, Keep/Problem/Try, and What Went Well guides under the same /guides/en/ tree.

Ask what the team needs to learn. Delivery friction → SSC, WWW, or DAKI. Energy and blockers → Sailboat or Speed Car. Emotion → Mad/Sad/Glad. Learning → 4Ls. Ceremony bloat → Starfish or DAKI. Emerging agenda → Lean Coffee. Chronology → Timeline. Upcoming risk → Pre-Mortem. Engagement temperature → ESVP as opener, then a content template. Rotate monthly so metaphors stay fresh.

On RetroEP, open the template picker and type part of a name. Preview column colors before you create the room. You can still change facilitation style even after picking a template: anonymity, duration, password, and vote limits are independent settings. Combine any template with the same open-board workflow: write, group, vote, discuss, act, survey, archive.

Whatever template you choose, you get the same single open board, dot voting, anonymity modes, anonymous sprint survey, exports, and live room countdown. Pick the format that fits this sprint’s goal; switch next sprint. Read the sprint retrospective guide for facilitation choreography that works across templates.

Month one: Start/Stop/Continue for cadence. Month two: Sailboat or Speed Car for energy and risk. Month three: 4Ls or Mad/Sad/Glad for learning and emotion. Insert Lean Coffee when the agenda must emerge from the team. Insert Timeline after chaotic weeks. Insert Pre-Mortem before risky launches. Insert ESVP as a five-minute opener when engagement feels uneven, then switch to a content template.

Write the rotation on a team working agreement so facilitators do not reinvent the choice under time pressure. Keep RetroEP’s searchable picker as the execution layer — the agreement is the strategy; the board is the instrument.

Deep dives: What Went Well, Speed Car, Timeline, Keep/Problem/Try, Plus/Delta, 4Ls.

After three sprints on a format, ask: Did we finish actions? Did quieter people contribute? Did we learn something new versus repeating last month’s cards? Use RetroEP’s anonymous sprint survey trend as a soft signal. If scores fall while the same template repeats, switch lenses. If scores rise, keep the format but tighten timeboxes. Templates are hypotheses about how the team thinks — treat them experimentally.

Document winners in your team handbook with a RetroEP link and the guide URL so new joiners ramp faster. That compounds facilitation quality across rotations and reduces dependence on a single Scrum Master.

Classic formats emphasize clear verbs: start, stop, continue, keep, drop, improve. Metaphor formats (Sailboat, Speed Car, Mountain) unlock storytelling for teams tired of the same three columns. Process formats (Incident Review, Release Retro, Tech Debt) suit engineering deep dives. Timeline and async templates help distributed groups reconstruct events. Values templates such as Scrum Values or energy check-ins surface culture topics that process boards miss.

You do not need every category each quarter. Pick two classics and one metaphor as a baseline rotation, then swap in a specialist template when the sprint story demands it. Search the picker by keyword; preview colors; create the room; facilitate with the same write–group–vote–act choreography every time.

Create a room, pick any template, and invite the team with one link. No account wall. For Scrum-specific tooling language, see the Scrum retrospective tool page.