32 fun retrospective methods for agile teams in 2025

🧟‍♀️ One thing up front: Find 5 creative Halloween retrospective templates right here ! 🎃

Table of Contents

Before we start, our view on this: These are the best Retrospective Ideas for striving Agile Teams:

1. Spotify Health Check: Do we deliver stuff quickly?
2. 4L - Liked, Learn, Lack, Long for: What did we learn last?
3. Tetris Retrospective: What was the missing piece?
4. Glad, Sad, Mad: What made you mad in the last sprint?
5. Mario Kart Retro: How to increase our velocity?
6. Start, Stop, Continue: What should we start doing?
7. Chef’s Retro: Which were the missing ingredients?
8. Rose, Bud, Thorne: What things are waiting to blossom?
9. Hot Air Balloon Retro: What sandbags are decelerating us?
10. Sailboat Retrospective: What is our wind?

What should be part of every retrospective? It should reflect on the work from a different angle. Have you ever had a retro with extremely low energy levels? There was practically no feedback? Right - nobody wants that. 

That’s why you need the different angle. And that’s why in this post you’ll find a range of retrospective methods you didn’t know existed: If you want to challenge your team’s morale, do the “Team Morale Health Check”. If you need a fresh perspective, do the 7 Dwarfs Retrospective. Or is everyone on vacation? Then go with the vacation retro.

The formats will tickle your team’s creative veins - and definitely maximize the probability for one: Valuable Action Items . Let’s start with some hints and tips before diving deeper into our fun retro ideas.

Sprint Retrospective Meeting: A few hints before we start🚦

If you don’t have any experience with agile retrospectives or with retro templates, you can read through our short and crisp guide: Retrospectives - Everything you need to know.

Good to know: A Scrum retrospective usually lasts between 45 (up to 5 team members) and 90 minutes (up to 12 team members). If possible, you should allow even more time. In any case, you should actively timebox in each of the retro phases. If you are not familiar with these, you can find out more about them here: The 5 phases of a retrospective. If you often have problems with timeboxing, here are some tips for you: How to conduct a short retrospective.

Given this tight schedule, you should definitely make sure to have your retro format and retrospective meeting notes well prepared - find some help for that below.

If the Retro Method takes place in a distributed team, you may be wondering: how to conduct a retrospective online? You can find the answer here: retro board tool comparison. But to make it short: Our recommendation for this is our tool: Echometer. You will find a button below next to each retrospective method that leads to our tool.

If you are looking for a template for a Sprint Retrospective ppt (i.e. a PowerPoint presentation), you can also simply copy the questions and the image of the respective method into a PowerPoint presentation. It would be even easier, though, if you simply clicked the button - whichever you prefer :)

Scrum Retrospective Meeting: How to start a retrospective meeting 🏁

Before we get to the main part of this post: How do you start a retrospective? If we look back again (The 5 phases of a retrospective), this is quite easy to answer. You start with an icebreaker, with retro check-in questions. If you need some inspiration, just have a look here: The best retro check-ins for any context. “Setting the stage” after the check-in questions is an important foundation for the retrospective formats that follow.

The Best Retrospective Templates: Classics

Let’s start with the best retrospective methods - or at least the five most common. These are also particularly well-suited for beginners or for teams that don’t have that much retro experience yet. Below you will then find methods for retrospective pros that will also help against retro fatigue.

Let’s start with the classics: I’m talking about the retrospective method “Start Stop Keep” (also known as “Start Stop Continue”), the retrospective “Loved Learned longed for” (also known as “Retro Loved Learned liked Longed For” or 4l retrospective), the Scrum retrospective with the 3 central questions “What went well”, the sailboat retrospective, the “mad sad glad” retrospective and “Thumbs up, Thumbs down, new ideas and recognition”. You can find more about this below!

The “What Went Well” retrospective is probably the most popular or well-known of all the ideas for retrospectives. It is based on the pattern that we find in many other retrospectives, but simply without all the bells and whistles around it. With a view to the last sprint cycle, these 3 questions are asked. ( You can find more advantages of the “What went well” retrospective here… )

The “Mad Sad Glad” retrospective method has a similar pattern, but uses three typical emotions to make it a little more interesting for the team. It’s your decision whether you want to use the English or German terms.

The Scrum Retrospective Start Stop Keep is also known as the Start Stop Continue Retrospective. I highly recommend making it a “Keep Stop Start” retro (in that order) because you start with something positive and end with ideas for new action items:

The “Retrospective liked learned lacked longed for” is called 4l retrospective because the 4 key questions are each made up of a word that starts with “l” - obviously. When we look at the last few weeks:

Now, with this retrospective idea we are getting more creative making use of a metaphor: The sailboat. Imagine your team or your last sprint as a sailboat.

The DAKI Retrospective, standing for the English words “Drop Add Keep Improve”, is a simple acronym that is also classically used as a retrospective method. (More detailed information about the DAKI Retrospective: 2 tips for the DAKI retrospective incl. examples )

The “The Three Little Pigs” retrospective is based on the fairy tale of the same name, in which 3 pigs build three houses from completely different materials. Of course, the three houses are built with different robustness. The question is - what material are the results in your team built from?

The Starfish Sprint Retrospective is particularly visually interesting: 5 questions are asked that can be optimally divided into the columns of a starfish. The Sprint Retrospective “Starfish” tends to take a little longer with 5 questions.

The “What Went Well” retrospective is probably the most popular or well-known of all the ideas for retrospectives. It is based on the pattern that we find in many other retrospectives, but simply without all the bells and whistles around it. With a view to the last sprint cycle, these 3 questions are asked:

So, thumbs up for these classics? If it’s more of a “thumbs down”, you might like the following ideas for retrospectives, which are even more focused on fun and creativity. There are some somewhat playful retrospective methods but also a few health checks (more on Agile team health checks here).

Fun Sprint Retrospective Templates: 5 Health-Check-Radar Templates

A radar chart is a nice overview to show the results of Team Health Check’s - and as we are developing a retrospective tool that focuses on continuous health checks based on psychology, we can help with that. Here you can find a few retrospective ideas including radar charts.

The Spotify Health Check (based on the Spotify model) is one of the classics when it comes to frameworks to scale agile. The nice thing about it: The Spotify Health Check Retrospective can be carried out in tribes (several teams) as well as in individual teams.

The agile values and principles belong to the basics of a Scrum course. Only when you live up to them, you can reach higher agile maturity levels achieve. This health check helps you to reflect on the 5 agile Scrum values from a different perspective with your team and make them measurable - see below for an insight.

Since Project Aristotle is from Google Psychological safety known to correlate closely with the success of teams. There are concrete behavioral anchors that will help you measure and discuss Psychological Safety in your team - good luck!

You may be satisfied in the team - but what does that look like when you go into a little more detail regarding team spirit? This retro helps to illuminate it from different perspectives somewhat more objectively. So that you can get on particularly creative action items without much effort. You could say it is food for your team maturation process.

Retrospective ideas agile: Let’s play games

Now you know some of the classic points for a retrospective meeting that may be the best agile retrospectives or at least the most common ones. Agile teams typically like to have a new​​ remote retrospective format regularly, different retrospective ideas to trigger new thoughts. You can find one or the other freshly developed retrospective question below. 

Everyone loves games. Why not use some retrospective scrum games to trigger interesting new thoughts in your team? Of course, you should make sure that everyone knows the games that our retrospective scrum games are based on.

Racing is as unpredictable as today’s work. Use this fun scrum retrospective meeting template to analyze what lays ahead of you - in a Mario style!

Maybe some have vivid memories of playing Pacman. Let’s use them to take a fresh perspective on our teamwork - with these retro questions:

Work often feels like a game: With every level (sprint), things get harder. But equally, the game character (our team) develops their strengths to rise up to the challenge.

Agile Retrospective Game | 2

Need more team spirit? Your team pet 🙉

Agile Retrospective Games for distributed teams | 16

Your sprint is difficult to describe? Songs will help 🎹

Tetris is a fun computer game with the goal to puzzle under pressure. Sounds like work? Well, it kind of is.

If these retrospective ideas don’t fit into your team Tetris puzzle, then I have a few more pieces for you.

Fun Retrospective Questions for different Times of the Year

Sometimes it’s scalding hot outside, or bitterly cold. This inevitably changes the atmosphere in which one works. The most beautiful are the retrospectives that match the mood of the year. That’s why we have developed retrospective templates for the 4 seasons especially for you.

Retrospectives for the summer

Format for retrospective

Too hot in the office? The Summer retro ⛱☀️

In the best case, your team scrum sprint feels like how you imagine summer. A positive vibe everywhere, everything is working smoothly. Although there are some things that make you sweat. This template for retrospective meeting is the right one for the summer:

Ideas retrospective

Everyone on vacation? The Vacation retro 🏖🗺

Many of your colleagues were or will be on vacation? Then a retrospective question in this regard might be the right fit. Because even leisure time can be stressful. Let’s view our last sprint like vacation time…

Retrospective format scrum

Not in the flow? The Surfer’s retro 🏄🏽‍♀️ 🌊

Salty water, sun, waiting for the next wave. Surfing can be a lot of fun and look so effortless. How did your team catch the last wave? Are you prepared to catch the next one and ride it all the way to the beach?

Retrospective format scrum

A difficult path ahead? The Roadtrip Retro 🛣

A road trip to… well, the destination. The main thing is to arrive. Or? Is it just about the destination, or is the journey somehow the destination too? Reflect on your last leg or sprint with the Agile Roadtrip Retrospective.

Retrospective format scrum

Missing a crucial ingredient? The Barbecue Retro 🍗

Grilling outdoors in the fresh air - that’s what you imagine summer to be like. But to create the perfect grilling experience, there’s a lot involved. If your team likes to grill, then the following questions will generate creative thoughts.

Fall Retrospectives

Retrospective idea 5

Times have changed? The autumn Retro 🍁

After summer inevitably comes autumn. A time of change, but also of new beginnings and gratitude. It’s best to make sure you’re prepared for all eventualities early on.

Ideas retrospective

Lack of creative will? The Farming Retrospective 👩🏻‍🌾

“Fools rush in, the wise wait, the clever go into the garden” - as various writers have put it. Tending a garden is a complex matter. Pruning shoots at the right time, planting seeds, harvesting roots is an art. Similar to successful teamwork.

Online retrospective scrum

No more order? The spring cleaning retro 🌼

Quarterly retrospective, project milestones, retrospective annual review, the retrospective retrospective: With Marie Kondō, we’ve not only started tidying up our living room and kitchen. We can also take her to our workplace to bring order to the chaos - with these retro questions:

Retrospective ideas agile: Reflecting the last weeks

Once again, recommended: Feel free to change the remote retrospective format, leave some of the questions out and adapt them to your specific needs and context! The more the virtual agile retrospective ideas fit your context, the better.

Soccer is all about good teamwork. The right people have to be on the pitch. And yet, sometimes you just have a bad day. If your team has some soccer fans, this agile sprint retrospective fits the bill. ( More information about this fun retrospective can be found here… )

Escape Rooms have just the right balance of “pressure” and “fun”, like a good retrospective. If the team feels like they’re somehow stuck, it’s worth trying to break out of their own situation. Just like in an escape game.

This has nothing to do with the fairy tale of the Seven Dwarfs, but the results can still be fabulously good: Each team member takes 7 different perspectives and is thus virtually forced to empathize: Because each of the 7 dwarfs has an emotional slant from which they view the status quo (e.g. the last Scrum Sprint):

The last thing you want is to put out unforeseen flames at work and be pulled away from your core tasks. But it still happens regularly. Let’s prevent it by starting with this retrospective question:

Every sprint tells a little story - with ups and downs. This retro method is not just for bookworms.

Retrospective ideas agile: Conclusion

Once again, what should a retrospective include? It should include the 5 phases I mentioned above - best case with a creative and interesting retrospective idea. We hope that you will try out some of the mentioned agile team retrospective ideas. Once again: If you are searching for a sprint retrospective template ppt (i.e., powerpoint), feel free to copy every retrospective question into powerpoint. 

You should now at least know the best agile retrospective ideas (or the most well-known): Start Stop Keep (also known as “Start Stop Continue”), the Liked Learned Lacked retrospective (also known as 4l retrospective), the sailboat retrospective, and the Mad Sad Glad retrospective.

Scrum Retrospective Meeting: Some last hints

Since we don’t have 40 retrospective ideas yet: If you have any more retrospective examples or ideas for an agile team retrospective, or would like to give us feedback after you have gone through each retrospective method - just write to us. In case you are generally new to retrospectives (a beginner Scrum Master or Agile Coach), I highly recommend having a look at our free eBook: 20+ tips for really successful retrospectives . 

And if you’re looking for a free online tool for retrospectives, you may have seen that Echometer is just that.

Have fun trying out the different retro methods in our tool 😄🙌