The Superhero retrospective treats the team as one hero squad. It uses a playful metaphor to make serious strengths, vulnerabilities, blockers, and support needs easier to discuss.
Use the prompts to keep cards specific. The examples show the level of detail that makes discussion and voting useful.
Which repeatable skills, habits, or team qualities helped us succeed?
Which conditions make the team less effective or unusually vulnerable?
Which recurring obstacle or pattern keeps opposing our progress?
Which people, skills, tools, or support help us overcome those obstacles?
A complete path from framing the room to assigning one concrete follow-up.
Explain the four prompts and frame the team as one hero squad. Make it clear that a nemesis must be an obstacle or pattern, never a person.
Give everyone quiet time to add specific observations from the reviewed sprint or milestone, with one idea per card.
Read cards column by column. Ask authors for evidence and context without debating solutions yet.
Combine cards that describe the same pattern, then vote for the kryptonite or nemesis that most limits the team.
Discuss how an existing superpower and a useful sidekick or gadget could reduce the highest-voted obstacle.
Create one small action with an owner, deadline, and signal that will show whether the team is stronger next time.
Ask where each Superpower came from and which past challenge helped the team develop it.
Let each person name one individual strength, then discuss how those powers combine into a team capability.
Focus Sidekicks & Gadgets on one skill, tool, relationship, or experiment the team needs for the next milestone.
Before the retro
Warm up the team’s imagination before naming its collective superpowers.
It is a metaphor-based retrospective that helps a team identify its strongest capabilities, vulnerabilities, recurring blockers, and the support it needs to succeed.
This template uses Superpowers, Kryptonite, Nemesis, and Sidekicks & Gadgets.
Kryptonite is a condition that makes the team vulnerable. A Nemesis is a recurring obstacle or pattern that actively blocks progress. A person should never be named as the Nemesis.
Connect every card to observable work, balance celebration with honest constraints, and finish by using one Superpower and one form of support to counter a priority obstacle.
Open the four ready-made columns, invite the hero squad, find the obstacle that matters, and leave with one owned power-up.