My 7 All-Time Favorite Agile Retrospective Templates
In my team, we conduct an agile retrospective more often than average: every Friday, i.e. once a week. And you won’t believe it - thanks to the many super agile retrospective templates, among other things, it’s time well invested every week.
And for the die-hards among you, I can also confirm that I’m sure we can see an effect on our team’s key success metrics (see also: 25 Agile Metrics - one KPI is enough ).
We have already conducted several hundred retrospectives in our agile team, as you can see in the screenshot on the right. I was therefore able to form an opinion as to which sprint retrospective templates work well and which templates work rather poorly.
That’s why I’d like to present my 7 favorite retrospective templates for agile retrospectives in this post. Please don’t forget one thing: In the end, you should leave retrospectives with good measures (read more: 10 tips for good measures in retrospectives ).
My 7 Favorite Retrospective Templates for Agile Teams
The 7 retrospective ideas are generally not classics. For example, I deliberately left out the “Mad Sad Glad”, “What went well” or “Start Stop Continue” retrospectives, simply because I don’t like them as much.
Instead, I’d like to recommend 7 agile retrospective templates that your team probably hasn’t done yet, but which are sure to make for a good retrospective. Here is an overview with my rating for each.
| Agile Retrospective template | Rating | Context |
| Drive & Brake Retrospective | ✅ Good | Better than the “What went well” retro, because “what slowed you down” is easier to answer than “what went badly?” - the template is underrated! |
| Battery Retrospective | ✅🚀 Very good | A great metaphor that every software developer will understand in an IT context. It’s fun to answer the 4 questions. |
| CEO Retrospective | ✅ Good | The questions can open up a new, interesting perspective that other retrospectives cannot - highly recommended! |
| Sherlock Retrospective Template | ✅ Good | Everyone knows Sherlock, so everyone enjoys answering these questions - more than with most other retros. |
| Futurespective template | ✅🚀 Very good | Especially in teams that sometimes find it difficult to “look back”, it can be very wise to use this template to focus on the future for a sprint retro. |
| DORA KPI Retrospective | ✅🚀 Very good | It gets a little more technical here, but you also have a very high probability of deriving good measures: You reflect on your subjective perception of the DORA key figures. |
| Spotify Health Check Retro | ✅🚀 Very good | Spotify’s probably best-known team health check has been carried out in too few teams - a clear recommendation to go through all 11 questions once. |
Just to emphasize this again: Whether these agile retrospective templates work for you obviously depends heavily on your team. However, in my experience, all 7 retrospective techniques are likely to work very well in teams that are open to something like this. Before we move on, let’s briefly establish a common understanding of the core purpose of retrospectives.
What is the purpose of an agile retrospective?
Good question - why do we actually do retrospectives? I have discussed this question in detail in my blog article on the subject: 5 Sprint retrospective Output vs. outcomes .
To cut a long story short, I would say that the retrospective has two core objectives:
- a) Derive measures to continuously improve your team and your processes
- b) Creating more team spirit and psychological safety, especially in remote teams
Many software development teams work together remotely or virtually these days, which is why the second aspect is also very important to me. Okay, let’s get started with the templates for agile retrospectives.
Agile Retrospective templates, questions & techniques #1
Drive & Drag Retrospective 👍
Normally you just ask “What went well, what went badly” in a retrospective. Experience shows, however, that you’ll get more interesting answers if you ask these two questions - try out the retro template!
Agile Retrospective templates, questions & techniques #2
Battery Retrospective template 🔋
Does everyone charge their cell phone battery every day, but also their personal battery? In my experience, the metaphor of this retro template here resonates with every team and leads to new answers that provide a great basis for deriving effective measures in an agile retrospective.
Agile Retrospective templates, questions & techniques #3
CEO Retrospective Template 👩💼
The first question in particular gives your team members the space to address things that they might not otherwise put on the agenda. I can therefore highly recommend the acronym or this agile retrospective template.
Agile Retrospective templates, questions & techniques #4
Sherlock Retrospective Template 🔍
Sherlock Holmes is a very popular story, which is why the protagonists are well suited to taking a somewhat different look at your last agile project sprint. You can find this agile retrospective template, of course - like all the others - in our retrospective software tool Echometer.
Agile Retrospective templates, questions & techniques #5
Futurespective Retrospective Template 🔍
Especially in teams that sometimes find it difficult to “look back”, it can be very wise to use this template to focus on the future for a sprint retro. This is a common method in coaching and psychology, so why not in retrospectives?
Agile Retrospective templates, questions & techniques #6
DORA DevOps Retrospective Template
Hopefully you know the four DORA DevOps key metrics - if not: Here is an overview of the 4 DORA KPIs . In short, the four KPIs can be used to measure how good your software team really is - there are even benchmarks for them. This agile retrospective technique, in turn, uses the 4 metrics as a basis for reflecting on your last sprint.
Health Check Questions (Scale)
Open questions
Agile Retrospective templates, questions & techniques #7
Health Check Retro: Spotify Squad Health Check 👩🏻💻
Whether you work in a scaled agile framework or are just a single software development team, the Spotify Health Check with a total of 11 questions will help you reflect on your team performance holistically (read more: Spotify Health Check ). There is also a video of the template below.
Health Check Questions (Scale)
More information about the Spotify Team Health Check Retro
If you want to improve your agile team holistically, the Spotify Team Health Check is a great way to do this in a systematic way.
Because we like the format so much, I’ve even recorded a video in which I present the retrospective template in more detail - feel free to take a look.
Conclusion - The best templates for agile retrospectives
If you don’t like any of these seven agile retrospective templates, I would be quite surprised. Feel free to write to me and I’ll try to give you a tip that’s tailored to your team.
Alternatively, you can also take a look at our blog article with even more retrospective templates: 54 Retrospective templates for ambitious agile teams .
FAQ - Templates for agile retrospectives
Which retrospective templates work well in “difficult” agile teams?
That’s a good question - in that case I would start with the “Drive & Drag” retrospective template. At the same time, however, you should have one-on-one conversations and get a feel for the psychological safety in the team in order to find out the causes of your team’s “difficult” behavior.
When conducting the very first retrospective with the team, which template is particularly suitable?
If you are conducting your first retrospective in a team, I would rather choose a classic such as the Starfish Retrospective or the 4L “Loved Learned Longed” Retrospective. They should help to introduce the team to the basic principles of retrospectives without deterring them with creative metaphors.
How do I ensure that quiet or introverted team members also say something in retrospectives?
Good question, a simple answer: As a moderator, you are welcome to actively approach team members and ask for their opinions - I would even recommend it.
If you don’t want to single out just one person, then turn the tables: just ask EVERY team member explicitly for a comment. Yes, you can do that. After all, your team members are paid for their expertise.
Finally, a reference to my other article on today’s topic: 5 sprint retrospective ideas that are guaranteed to please your team.
"Many team members are afraid to speak up!"
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"We discover too many unexpected issues & bugs at a late stage!"
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"Why does it sometimes take me hours to prepare a simple retrospective?"
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