A familiar retro structure for teams that want a balanced review with praise, friction, and appreciation.
Went Well
To Improve
Shout Outs
Retrospective templatesfor better team discussions
Browse structured retrospective templates, preview the columns, and start a board with the same setup flow your team already uses.
Template catalog
Compare formats by meeting style, group count, and the prompts your team will respond to.
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Showing 15 of 15 templates
A crisp format for teams that want direct feedback about habits to add, remove, and preserve.
Start
Stop
Continue
Evaluate benefits, drawbacks, and unresolved or surprising evidence without forcing every observation into a binary judgment.
Plus
Minus
Interesting
A simple emotional retro that helps surface morale, disappointment, and wins from the sprint.
Mad
Sad
Glad
Separate strengths, emerging opportunities, and obstacles so the team can protect what works and focus its next improvement.
Rose
Bud
Thorn
Start with psychological safety, then capture concerns, confidence, and support needs for the next sprint.
What Felt Safe
Where We Hesitated
Support We Need
Explore momentum, blockers, risks, and destination with a classic visual retrospective metaphor.
Wind in Our Sails
Anchors
Rocks Ahead
Our Island Goal
Review what the team liked, learned, lacked, and longed for to balance reflection and aspiration.
Liked
Learned
Lacked
Longed For
Break improvement ideas into more actionable buckets than a standard start-stop-continue retro.
Keep Doing
Less Of
More Of
Stop Doing
Start Doing
Focus the conversation on what to drop, add, keep, and improve as the team evolves its process.
Drop
Add
Keep
Improve
A process-tuning retro that asks what to keep, add, less, and more in the next iteration.
Keep
Add
Less
More
Use wishes, risks, appreciations, and puzzles to blend gratitude with practical learning.
Wishes
Risks
Appreciations
Puzzles
A forward-looking retro for teams that want to celebrate progress while naming steep climbs ahead.
Base Camp Wins
Steep Sections
Supplies We Need
Summit Next
Prompt reflection around risks, opportunities, bright spots, improvements, and next steps.
Risks
Opportunities
Bright Spots
Improvements
Next Steps
Reveal the team’s standout strengths, vulnerabilities, recurring obstacles, and the support that helps everyone succeed.
Superpowers
Kryptonite
Nemesis
Sidekicks & Gadgets
Choose by conversation
Use Classic Sprint for a balanced first retro or Start Stop Continue for direct changes to team habits.
Choose Sailboat for momentum, drag, risk, and destination; use Mad Sad Glad when the emotional impact of work needs room.
For an established process, Starfish, DAKI, and KALM help the team tune what it already does.
Turn prompts into action
- 1. Review the previous action before collecting new cards.
- 2. Write silently so everyone forms an independent view.
- 3. Group and vote instead of discussing every note.
- 4. Assign one improvement with an owner and review signal.
Read the retrospective meeting guide or see the full online board workflow.
Frequently asked questions
What is a retrospective template?
A retrospective template is a set of prompts or columns that shapes what the team reflects on, such as wins, friction, learning, risk, morale, or future action.
Which retrospective template should a new team use?
Classic Sprint is a clear balanced default. Start Stop Continue also works when the team already understands its context and wants direct process decisions.
Should a team use the same retro template every sprint?
Keep a template while it produces useful evidence, but change it when answers become automatic or the team needs a different conversation about risk, morale, learning, or strategy.
Can these templates be used for remote retrospectives?
Yes. Use silent writing, simultaneous reveal, visible timing, and a shared HeyRetro board so remote participants can contribute before discussion begins.
Make the next retro easier to run
Pick a format, invite the team, and move from shared observations to one owned action.