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DAKIretrospective template

A process review usually contains two kinds of change: a clean break and a small adjustment. DAKI gives both a place, along with a column for new experiments and another for strengths worth protecting.

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Duration
30–40 minutes
Team size
3–12 people
Best for
Workflow reviews, changes to the operating model, and improvement backlogs
DAKI retrospective template preview

What each column means

Use the prompts to keep cards specific. The examples show the level of detail that makes discussion and voting useful.

Drop

3

Which practice costs time or complexity and has stopped earning its place?

  • Drop duplicate release reports.
  • Drop mandatory estimates that the team still creates for every tiny fix.
  • Drop the unused approval queue.

Add

3

Which missing practice should the team try as an experiment?

  • Add a dependency check during refinement.
  • Add a review that looks directly at the health of each release.
  • Add customer context to the kickoff.

Keep

3

Which practice works well at its current level?

  • Keep small pull requests.
  • Keep the product demo on its current weekly schedule for the team.
  • Keep rotating facilitation.

Improve

3

Which useful practice needs a targeted adjustment while it stays in place?

  • Improve refinement with clearer outcomes.
  • Improve every handoff by naming one owner who stays responsible for it.
  • Improve alerts by removing noise.

30–40 minutes agenda

A complete path from framing the room to assigning one concrete follow-up.

  1. 01

    Frame the review

    Name the sprint or project being reviewed, restate the purpose of each column, and remind everyone to describe observable events.

    3 minutes
  2. 02

    Write observations silently

    Give everyone uninterrupted time to add one specific observation per card across every column.

    7 minutes
  3. 03

    Share and clarify

    Read the cards column by column and let authors add context without debating solutions yet.

    7 minutes
  4. 04

    Group and vote

    Combine cards that describe the same pattern, then vote for the themes that would most improve the next iteration.

    5 minutes
  5. 05

    Discuss the leading themes

    Explore causes, consequences, and tradeoffs behind the highest-voted themes while making space for dissenting evidence.

    10 minutes
  6. 06

    Commit to one change

    Turn the strongest insight into a small action with an owner, deadline, and signal the team can review next time.

    5 minutes

Use this format when

  • The team is redesigning its workflow.
  • Several practices need adjustment and still deserve a place in the process.
  • The process review needs clear decision categories.

Choose another format when

  • Start with an incident review when the team still needs to understand what happened.
  • A short check-in leaves too little room for the team to work through four separate categories.
  • Participants have little control over the process under review.

Facilitation tips

  • Before anyone writes, explain how Keep protects a practice and Improve changes one part of it.
  • Ask each Drop card to include a reason.
  • Frame every Add card as a temporary experiment that the team will revisit after trying it.
  • Let people vote across all four columns.
  • Match each addition with capacity freed somewhere else.

Useful variations

Workflow DAKI

Trace the work from discovery to release, then classify changes at each handoff.

Tooling DAKI

Review tools and automation alongside alerts and recurring operational tasks.

Quarterly DAKI

Use a longer window to reset team practices ahead of the next quarter.

Before the retro

Recommended warm-up

This or That icebreaker game preview

This or That

Use a quick, low-pressure choice round before the retrospective begins.

Play the warm-up

Frequently asked questions

What does DAKI stand for?

The name DAKI comes from its four labels: Drop, Add, Keep, and Improve.

How is DAKI different from Start Stop Continue?

Start Stop Continue places every practice that remains with the team into a single Continue category. DAKI splits that decision into Keep for proven strengths and Improve for practices that need adjustment.

What belongs in Improve?

Use Improve for a practice that creates value and needs a specific change to its quality, frequency, ownership, or scope.

How many DAKI actions should a team select?

Choose one or two. Vote across all four columns, then give each action an owner and a point for review.

Related resources

Run this DAKI Retrospective

Open the ready-made columns, invite the team, collect observations, vote, and leave with an owned improvement.

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