Column 1
Keep Doing
What works at roughly the current level?
Example cards
- Keep the weekly customer playback.
- Keep rotating code review buddies.
- Keep the release checklist.
Ready-to-use template
Starfish Retrospective
The Starfish retrospective separates complete changes from adjustments in intensity. Teams can protect what works, ask for more or less of a practice, and still make clear start and stop decisions.
- Duration
- 35–45 minutes
- Team size
- 3–12 people
- Best for
- Mature teams making nuanced adjustments to established practices
What each column means
Use the prompts to keep cards specific. The examples show the level of detail that makes discussion and voting useful.
Column 2
Less Of
What still has value but happens too often or too heavily?
Example cards
- Spend less time estimating low-risk chores.
- Use fewer approval steps for reversible changes.
- Schedule fewer overlapping initiatives.
Column 3
More Of
What useful practice needs greater frequency or attention?
Example cards
- Do more exploratory testing before release.
- Share more context with support.
- Reserve more time for technical discovery.
Column 4
Stop Doing
What should be removed completely?
Example cards
- Stop copying status into three systems.
- Stop beginning work without acceptance criteria.
- Stop postponing flaky test fixes.
Column 5
Start Doing
What new experiment should the team introduce?
Example cards
- Start tracking blocked time.
- Start a fifteen-minute design review.
- Start assigning an action owner in the retro.
35–45 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.
Use this format when
- The team has stable practices worth tuning.
- Start Stop Continue feels too blunt.
- People disagree about whether to remove a practice or reduce it.
Choose another format when
- A new team does not yet have enough shared history.
- The meeting is limited to twenty minutes.
- The five columns would fragment a single urgent incident review.
Facilitation tips
- Explain the difference between Less Of and Stop Doing before writing.
- Ask for evidence about frequency, cost, or outcome.
- Merge mirror-image cards before voting.
- Give fewer votes than there are columns.
- Translate More Of and Less Of into measurable experiments.
Useful variations
Lean Starfish
Collect cards asynchronously, then spend the meeting only on voting and discussion.
Delivery Starfish
Apply all five prompts to planning, development, review, and release flow.
Collaboration Starfish
Limit observations to communication, pairing, handoffs, and team support.
Before the retro
Recommended warm-up
This or That
Use a quick, low-pressure choice round before the retrospective begins.
Frequently asked questions
What are the five areas of a Starfish retrospective?
They are Keep Doing, Less Of, More Of, Stop Doing, and Start Doing.
How is Starfish different from Start Stop Continue?
Starfish adds Keep Doing, Less Of, and More Of, making it easier to adjust the intensity of useful practices.
When should a team use Starfish?
Use it with an established team that has enough shared experience to make nuanced process adjustments.
How do you prevent too many Starfish actions?
Group related cards, vote across the whole board, and select only one or two experiments with owners and review dates.
Related retrospective templates
Run this Starfish Retrospective
Open the ready-made columns, invite the team, collect observations, vote, and leave with an owned improvement.