The ‘Keep Stop Start’ Retrospective incl. direct access
Many Scrum Masters and Agile Coaches are looking for the keywords “Keep Stop Start” retrospective - I can help you with that.
Retrospective Keep Doing Stop Doing
The three questions to ask
The smarter ones among you will have already guessed that the “Start Stop Continue” or “Keep Stop Start” consists of three questions. As a Scrum Master and psychologist, I personally prefer the “Keep Stop Start” retrospective (more on this below). It’s quite simple - you ask the development team the following questions:
- Keep: [Optional: Looking at the last sprint…] What should we keep doing?
- Stop: What should we stop doing?
- Start: What should we start doing?
You are welcome to give the team more context (e.g. by saying “looking at the last sprint or the last few weeks”) when you ask these questions.
By the way, you can do this retrospective online using our retrospective tool Echometer now (no registration necessary):
The order of the questions - Start Stop Keep Retrospective
As mentioned earlier, I prefer the “Keep Stop Start” retrospective compared to the “Start Stop Continue” or “Start Stop Keep” retrospective. Why? Because of the order of the questions. The last question is particularly important.
If you ask last what the team would like to “start”, you are perfectly leading to the last phase of the retrospective over - the potential actions. If you only ask what you want to “continue”, it doesn’t have this nice side effect.
By the way, here you can find 7 tips for great action items in retrospectives .
Conclusion - Retrospective Keep Doing Stop Doing
The “Keep Stop Start” retrospective is one of the most common retrospective methods. I generally recommend surprising your team regularly with a different set of retrospective questions. We have a blog post with 32 kickass retrospective ideas for beginners and professionals. written - feel free to check it out!
Retro Boards: Frequently Asked Questions
The following questions will help you choose the right online retro board software.
You can find more retro ideas in our collection 32 Retrospective Methods .
