Quick Retrospective Template
Look back at successes and failures to improve everyday practices with the retrospective template.
Trusted by 65M+ users and leading companies
About the Quick Retrospective Template
A retrospective template helps structure positive and negative feedback and plan improvements after a completed project or a working sprint. This quick retrospective template focuses on four main areas:
Continue (what helped us move forward?)
Stop (what held us back?)
Invent (how could we do things differently?)
Act (what should be do next?)
Teams run retrospectives online to reflect on their ways of working and continuously improve their production by discussing current problems and goals, brainstorming new ideas, and exploring which actions need to happen to keep moving forward.
What is a retrospective template?
A retrospective template empowers you to run insightful meetings, take stock of your work, and iterate effectively. The term “retrospective” has gained popularity over the more common “debriefing” and “post-mortem,” since it’s more value-neutral than the other terms. Some teams refer to these meetings as “sprint retrospectives” or “iteration retrospectives,” “agile retrospectives” or “iteration retrospectives.”
Whether you are a scrum team using the agile methodology or doing a specific type of retrospective (e.g. a mad, sad, glad retrospective), the goals are generally the same: discovering what went well, identifying the root cause of problems you had, and finding ways to do better in the next iteration.
3 benefits of using an Agile retrospective template
Miro's quick retrospective template helps your team solve problems and improve productivity by discussing the challenges you encountered during a sprint. One of the benefits of the retrospective format is that it gives equal power to all team members to open up and present their views.
Here are a few more benefits of using the quick sprint retrospective template:
1. Keeps the retrospective organized
Using a scrum retrospective template helps you avoid common pitfalls. For example, the goal of the retrospective is to brainstorm areas of improvement, but some employees may use the meeting simply to air their grievances. The template functions as a project management tool that allows you to stay on track and bring everyone back to your central questions: What did we do well? How can we improve? What helped us move forward?
2. Incorporates feedback from different perspectives
Moreover, noting these central questions can empower participants to speak up. Use the quick retrospective template to foster an environment in which every member of the team feels comfortable sharing their ideas. The retrospective template is also a good exercise to analyze what held your team back and how you could do things differently.
3. Boosts efficiency and set actions
Equally important, the template increases efficiency and cuts down on resource usage. Retrospective meetings tend to be costly since they demand time and attention from various stakeholders. Using the retrospective template can help you prepare for the meeting, keep everyone on task, and clarify action items and what to do next. You can quickly refer to previous retrospective templates to ensure you’re not discussing a redundant topic.
How to use the retrospective template in Miro
Miro's quick retrospective template can help make your next sprints more productive. Here are some tips for using the retrospective template during your next retro:
1. Add the template to your board
Share the retrospective template with team members prior to the meeting so they can already start thinking about their feedback and ideas. During the meeting, have team members add their thoughts on sticky notes in the respective sections. This can be done using private mode to reduce bias and groupthink.
2. Discuss as a group
Once everyone has added their thoughts, go through each section. Discuss each point, grouping similar items to identify common themes or issues. You can use Miro's voting feature to prioritize topics if there are too many to discuss in detail. Each team member can cast votes on the items they feel are most important.
3. Assign action items
Identify actionable steps based on the discussion. Assign owners and deadlines for each action item to ensure accountability.
4. Review and share
By using the scrum retrospective template every time you run a retro, you can keep the meeting focused to maintain energy and engagement. Share the filled-in template with all team members and stakeholders to document the outcomes of the retrospective. You can also include other file types such as images, videos, GIFs, and documents to store everything in one place.
Why do I need a retrospective template?
A retrospective or scrum retrospective template allows you and your team to analyze what worked well and what didn’t in a given project or working sprint. The visual representation of the retrospective contains fields for you and your team to add their points of view on how good or bad the sprint or project was. The sprint retrospective template makes it easy to collect feedback and action items for future discussions.
How do you write a retrospective template?
There is not a ready-made formula when it comes to how to write a retrospective. One of the essential factors for a good retrospective template is that it looks organized, and everyone inside your team can add their points of view and ideas. Be mindful to write objectively and keep it solution-oriented.
What should I say in a retrospective meeting?
The retrospective meeting should be a safe space for you to expose ideas and come up with solutions. When participating in a sprint retrospective, it’s important to stay as objective as possible. That way, you and your team can improve processes and the way you work together. If a misunderstanding or emotions come to the surface, try to be curious and embrace this state of mind without giving room for venting grievances. Rather, share how you feel and why you feel that way and encourage others to do the same.
How do I ensure that a quick retrospective template remains effective?
Keep the retrospective focused and time-boxed. Ensure that discussions are constructive and action items are specific, measurable, and achievable.
Can I customize the quick Retrospective template to suit my team's needs?
It is easy to customize the template to meet your team's specific goals, dynamics, and preferences. You can simply double-click the quick retrospective template components to change them based on your needs.
Reverse Brainstorming Template
Works best for:
Ideation, Brainstorming, Team Meetings
Reverse brainstorming is a technique that prompts a group to think of problems, rather than solutions. Because we naturally think of problems, it’s a great way to get a group to anticipate problems that may occur during a project. To engage in reverse brainstorming, start by identifying the problem, and then think of things that might exacerbate it. Ask your team to generate ideas around ways in which the problem could get worse. Reverse the problems into solutions again, and then evaluate your ideas.
Blameless postmortem canvas
Works best for:
Agile
The Blameless Postmortem Canvas is a structured framework for conducting blameless postmortems following incidents or failures. It provides sections for documenting the timeline, impact, root causes, and actionable insights. This template promotes a blame-free culture of learning and improvement, enabling teams to analyze incidents objectively, identify systemic issues, and implement preventive measures. By fostering transparency and accountability, the Blameless Postmortem Canvas empowers organizations to learn from failures and enhance resilience, driving continuous improvement and reliability.
Mad Sad Glad Retrospective
Works best for:
Brainstorming, Ideation
It's tempting to measure a sprint’s success solely by whether goals and timelines were met. But there’s another important success metric: emotions. And Mad Sad Glad is a popular, effective technique for teams to explore and share their emotions after a sprint. That allows you to highlight the positive, underline the concerns, and decide how to move forward as a team. This template makes it easy to conduct a Mad Sad Glad that helps you build trust, improve team morale, and increase engagement.
Lean Coffee: Meetings without Agendas
Works best for:
Agile
Lean Coffee: Meetings without Agendas is a collaborative meeting format that fosters open dialogue and emergent topics. Participants suggest discussion topics, vote on them, and engage in time-boxed conversations. This template provides a structured framework for facilitating Lean Coffee sessions, enabling teams to prioritize topics, share insights, and make decisions collectively. By promoting inclusivity and adaptability, Lean Coffee empowers teams to address issues efficiently and drive continuous improvement.
Product / Market Fit Canvas Template
Works best for:
Market Research, Strategic Planning, Product Management
The product/market fit canvas template is used to help product teams meet customer and market needs with their product design. This template looks at a product in two dimensions: first, how the product fits user needs, and second, how the fully designed product fits within the market landscape. This combined metric understands a product holistically from the way customers use and desire a product, to the market demand. By comparing customer and product qualities side by side, users should better understand their product space and key metrics.
Eisenhower Matrix Template
Works best for:
Leadership, Strategic Planning, Prioritization
Have an overwhelming list of to-dos? Prioritize them based on two key factors: urgency and importance. It worked for American president Dwight D. Eisenhower, and it can work for you—this decision-making framework will help you know where to start and how to plan your day. With our template, you can easily build an Eisenhower Matrix with a quadrant of key areas (Do, Schedule, Delegate, and Don’t Do) and revisit it throughout the day as your priorities change.