Use this format when
- The sprint carried visible emotional weight.
- The team needs a direct conversation about a recent shift in morale.
- Empathy needs room before process changes.
Retrospective templates Updated
Mad Sad Gladretrospective template
After a demanding sprint, people may need to name how the work felt before they can discuss the process clearly. Mad Sad Glad puts frustration, disappointment, and positive energy on the board, then ties each feeling to an event or condition the team can influence.
- Duration
- 30–40 minutes
- Team size
- 3–12 people
- Best for
- Demanding sprints, shifts in morale, and teams rebuilding a shared view of what happened
What each column means
Use the prompts to keep cards specific. The examples show the level of detail that makes discussion and voting useful.
Mad
3Which events felt frustrating or unfair, or created friction the team could have avoided?
- A late scope change wiped out finished work.
- The same build failure interrupted the team's work again and again throughout the week.
- Decisions changed before the team heard why.
Sad
3What left the team disappointed or feeling that it missed an opportunity?
- Accessibility improvements were cut again.
- One teammate was left to handle the incident from start to finish alone.
- Customer research arrived after the design was already final.
Glad
3What gave the team pride, relief, connection, or momentum?
- Support joined the refinement discussion and helped the team prevent a round of rework.
- The team protected its focus during the outage.
- The team's new release check caught a migration that carried too much risk.
30–40 minutes agenda
A complete path from framing the room to assigning one concrete follow-up.
- 013 minutes
Frame the review
Name the sprint or project being reviewed, restate the purpose of each column, and remind everyone to describe observable events.
- 027 minutes
Write observations silently
Give everyone uninterrupted time to add one specific observation per card across every column.
- 037 minutes
Share and clarify
Read the cards column by column and let authors add context without debating solutions yet.
- 045 minutes
Group and vote
Combine cards that describe the same pattern, then vote for the themes that would most improve the next iteration.
- 0510 minutes
Discuss the leading themes
Explore causes, consequences, and tradeoffs behind the highest-voted themes while making space for dissenting evidence.
- 065 minutes
Commit to one change
Turn the strongest insight into a small action with an owner, deadline, and signal the team can review next time.
Choose another format when
- The group's current level of psychological safety makes open emotional disclosure feel risky.
- An active personal dispute needs privacy.
- A neutral incident review is the team's immediate and clearly defined goal.
Facilitation tips
- Let each participant decide how personal their card should be and how much context they want to share.
- Receive each emotion exactly as the participant describes it.
- Ask about the event or condition behind a feeling and give the participant room to add context.
- Give Mad, Sad, and Glad equal airtime.
- Finish with a support or process change the team controls.
Useful variations
Anonymous Mad Sad Glad
Hide card authors, then reveal every contribution at once when an open conversation feels risky.
Milestone reflection
Widen the review from one sprint to the full release or project.
Customer Mad Sad Glad
Use the three columns to sort the customer reactions the team has observed so far. Keep the evidence separate from the team's assumptions.
Before the retro
Recommended warm-up
Frequently asked questions
What is a Mad Sad Glad retrospective?
Mad Sad Glad is an emotion-centered retrospective for talking through frustration, disappointment, and positive experiences.
Is Mad Sad Glad safe for work teams?
It can be. Set clear participation boundaries, keep cards focused on events, and let each person decide how much emotion to share.
What should go in the Mad column?
Add a specific situation that caused frustration or avoidable friction. A late scope change or a build that failed all week both belong here.
How does the team turn feelings into actions?
Find the condition behind the highest-priority feeling, then decide which small change in support or process would address it. Give the change an owner.
Run this Mad Sad Glad Retrospective
Open the ready-made columns, invite the team, collect observations, vote, and leave with an owned improvement.