Retrospective: step by step
A retro in eight phases, from check-in to actions that really belong to somebody at the end.
1. Create a retro
Open Retrospective and choose Create retro. Enter the name of the retro and your name as facilitator and pick a template:
- Classic (Went well / To improve / Actions), Start-Stop-Continue, Mad-Sad-Glad,
- 4Ls, Sailboat, Starfish, Rose, Bud, Thorn,
- Lean Coffee for an open conversation without a fixed agenda,
- Blank if you want to define the columns yourself.
You also set whether notes are anonymous, whether voting is anonymous, whether people without an account may join, how many votes each person has and whether blind writing applies (nobody sees the others' notes until the reveal). In the builder you add, rename, delete and sort columns. You adapt the agenda – the pages you go through: questions for the check-in, time limits, a team health check.
2. Invite
As with planning poker: room code, invitation link or QR code. Whoever joins only enters a name. A PIN or locking the room against new participants keeps the round closed if the link was forwarded.
3. The eight phases
| Phase | What happens |
|---|---|
| Check-in | Arriving: a question everyone answers briefly, or a mood picture (word cloud, scale, choice). |
| Writing | Everyone silently writes their notes into the columns – with blind writing, without seeing the others'. |
| Reveal | All notes become visible at the same time. |
| Group | Similar notes are put together into themes, by dragging or keyboard. Themes can be renamed, dissolved and merged. |
| Vote | Each person spreads their points over the themes most important to them. The result can be sorted by votes. |
| Discuss | You talk through the themes in the order of the votes, with a timer. |
| Actions | The conversation becomes actions: description, owner, due date, status, link to the note. |
| Check-out | Closing with a rating (ROTI: return on time invested) and a team health check. |
The facilitator jumps between phases, skips phases or goes back. Every phase can have a time limit. In presentation mode you show the retro on a shared screen, and the facilitator can synchronise the participants' views so that everybody is on the same page.
4. Working with notes
- Create, edit, move (drag with the mouse or by keyboard) and delete notes.
- Comment on notes and add reactions – if the facilitator allows it.
- Group similar notes into themes, dissolve themes or merge them.
5. Actions
Actions belong to the whole retro, not to one page – you can note them as soon as they come up. Each has a status (open, in progress, done), optionally an owner and a due date. Open actions from earlier retros can be carried into the next retro so nothing gets lost.
6. Results
At the end there is a summary with themes, votes and actions. You can export it as CSV or PDF (plan-dependent), duplicate the retro or – on paid plans with a connected service – post it to Slack or Teams, file it in Confluence or create actions as tickets in Jira, Linear or Trello.