Agile Coaches, Scrum Masters & Co. like creative ideas for retrospectives. Using varied questions in creative retro formats, teams often come up with new ideas and find the retrospective to be more fun.
That's why you shouldn't skip the seasonal Easter occasion to escape the standard retro formats a little. At least that's what Andreas and I thought this morning during our coffee chat. So we developed ideas on how Easter bunnies, egg hunt and surprise eggs can be meaningfully combined with the classic reflection questions of a retro.
Here are our results – have fun trying it out in your next Easter retros!
Easter Retro Icebreaker to start your retro
Let's start with a few appropriate Icebreaker questions or check-ins that will help set the stage for an effective retro in Easter retrospectives. Of course, you can also modify our suggestions or add images to your retro board.
You can ask the following questions of your team members to introduce the workshop in an interactive, atmospheric and fun way in the spirit of an Easter retro. These ones have a focus on introducing the reflection of the last weeks.
Easter-Icebreakers to reflect on the last weeks
- If we are the Easter Bunny and our job is to deliver eggs: Did we successfully deliver in the last sprint?
- If our last sprint was an Easter egg, what would it look like?
- If our last sprint were an Easter feast day, which would it be: Palm Sunday (the end of the long, difficult Lent), Good Friday (a day of mourning), or Easter Sunday (a festive holiday)?
Easter-Icebreakers to get to know the team
The following Icebreaker questions or check-ins have a focus on getting to know the team better in a fun way.
- What's your favorite (or most embarrassing) memory of Easter?
- What is your favorite way to eat (Easter) eggs?
- What's your record for eggs eaten over Easter?
- What's your favorite Easter tradition?
- What's your favorite thing to eat at a good (Easter) breakfast?
- What will you be doing this Easter weekend?
As I said, feel free to modify these Icebreaker questions to your taste and to fit your team.
Easter Retro Methods & Ideas for "Data Gathering"
After you have initiated the meeting in a fun way, it's time to ask the right retrospective questions to review the sprint holistically. The following 4 retrospective ideas can help you with this. Again, feel free to pick individual questions, stories, and ideas and adapt them to your team.
Easter Retrospective Ideas 1
The Easter Conspiracy 🕵🏻♂️
Scandal! The international Easter Bunny team did not deliver the eggs on time. It apparently didn't sprint fast enough. Were we being manipulated, or was it up to us? Let's find out, in this Easter retrospective with some creative food for thought.
Open retro questions
We are the Easter Bunny Team: What didn't go well with the delivery of the Easter eggs?
What influenced our Easter egg delivery positively and negatively?
How can we make the delivery process smoother next time?
Easter Retrospective Ideas 2
The Easter egg retro 🥚
Easter eggs come in a variety of shapes and (at least the toy eggs) can sometimes provide a surprise. Just like your last Scrum Sprint. If all the tasks and events of the last weeks were Easter eggs, how would you reflect on your last sprint?
Open retro questions
What Easter egg surprised you in the last few weeks?
Which Easter egg did you like best?
Which Easter egg didn't do so well for you?
Which team member would you like to gift a real Easter egg to and why?
Easter Retrospective Questions 3
The Easter delivery 🚚
The Easter Bunny team must deliver quickly and accurately to satisfy all consumers. Just like you.
Open retro questions
What helped us, the Easter Bunny team, deliver quickly?
What slowed us down?
How can we better support each other next time?
Easter Retrospective Ideas 4
The Easter Egg Factory 🏭
We are in the factory of the Easter Bunny. You are scientists and have the following goal: to develop egg products that make the customer happy. You are still at the very beginning of the experiment and have experimented with three known materials – that gave very different results.
Open retro questions
We are the Easter Bunny factory and delivered different eggs, for example chocolate eggs: Which increment from our last sprint was really well received?
Plastic eggs: Which increment from our last sprint looked better than it tasted?
Scrambled eggs: Which egg did we drop in the last sprint?
Visual Easter Retro Icebreaker for fun Check-Ins
So, you already have Icebreaker or Check-In questions as well as some Retro ideas for the "data gathering" in the Retro. However, we would like to give you some more visual Icebreakers that you can do with our Echometer Retro Board. Just click on the green button to get started 🙂 .
Icebreaker Easter Retrospective Idea 5
Our sprint as Easter bunny 🐰
Duration: 5-15 minutes | Goal: Setting the stage
Idea: Which of the images shown on the online whiteboard best conveys our sprint results from your personal point of view? Everyone in the team positions themselves and explains the answer.
One of the rather quick retrospective games:
- You give the instructions.
- 1-2 minute time slot: Everyone chooses an image from the given view (see whiteboard screenshot) or uploads their own image if wanted. Double-click to create a whiteboard sticky, which you drag onto the image to position yourself.
- The person who was the first to make a decision begins to explain their choice and hands over to the next person until everyone gave feedback.
Icebreaker Easter Retrospective Idea 6
Our sprint as an Easter egg 🪺
Duration: 5-15 minutes | Goal: Setting the stage
Idea: Which of the Easter eggs shown on the online whiteboard (with very different emotions) best conveys your attitude towards our sprint results? Everyone in the team positions themselves and explains the answer.
One of the rather quick retrospective games:
- You give the instructions.
- 1-2 minute time slot: Everyone chooses an egg from the given whiteboard image (see above) based on your instructions. Double-click to create a whiteboard sticky, which you drag onto the Easter egg to position yourself.
- The person who was the first to make a decision begins to explain their choice and hands over to the next person until everyone gave feedback.
Icebreaker Easter Retrospective Idea 7
Easter jokes & riddles as a funny icebreaker
Duration: 5-15 minutes | Goal: Setting the stage
Idea: In this retro game, you don't go straight into reflecting on the last sprint. Rather, the goal is to use a few jokes and small riddles to get the team to start the retro with a smile. Attention: Some jokes only work in English.
One of the rather quick retrospective games. You can (or should) adapt it to your team. This is what the game can look like:
- You read one of the puzzles (see screenshot of the Echometer whiteboard above).
- Now each team member may openly call out to the round if they have any ideas for how to solve the riddles or jokes.
- The person who guesses the most riddles wins the game.
Don't forget: The most important goal of this game is to get the team out of their daily routine and make them laugh before moving on to reflecting on the last few weeks or the last Scrum Sprint.
Seasonal Easter retrospective ideas to stimulate creativity: 1 more tip
If you are already using Echometer, you can easily add the Easter questions to the survey for the next retro and check-in in the retro preparation. Through the survey before the retro your team members have enough time to think about the questions before the retro. So you can be sure that your retro will bring many creative perspectives to light!
If you don't know Echometer yet, you should have a look on our "How-To" page and get to know the advantages of Echometer.
Conclusion – Good Retrospective Ideas
Team development is a complex matter for Scrum Masters, Agile Coaches and team leads. To make it as easy as possible for you to design effective team workshops, we have developed the Echomat . The Echomat is a free tool from Echometer that suggests workshop formats suitable for the specific challenges in your team. Feel free to a look!
If you are searching for fun retrospective ideas, check out our post on 54 Kickass Retrospective Ideas for Agile Teams (including the Mario Kart Retro & the Team Morale Health Check).
Most Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters run in circles...
...fixing superficial symptoms. Time to use psychology to foster sustainable mindset change.
