The Agile Retrospective “Good Bad Ugly” incl. direct access

You are looking for a “good bad ugly” retrospective? Okay, tada, here it is. It’s actually quite simple and based on the 1966 film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,” starring Clint Eastwood.

Agile Retrospective Good Bad Ugly

What to consider before doing this retrospective

I always emphasize that with every retrospective, be it the “Good Bad Ugly” retrospective or another, not only the 5 phases of a retrospective But also take into account the Double diamond model , which suggests to have even more than only the 5 phases.

Simply said, the model recommends to spend as much time on developing good action items to spend just as much time as for the “Gathering Information” at the beginning of the retro. Because the quality of the measures is the prerequisite for their success - and thus for the continuous improvement of your team.

agile sprint retrospective good bad ugly

But now to the format of the retrospective based on the film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly”.

The Agile Retrospective Good Bad Ugly

The process of the agile retrospective “Good Bad Ugly” is simple. Based on the three words, you ask three questions or specify three areas to which the team members can give feedback.

Obviously, feel free to draw a graph or draw these areas on an actual or digital whiteboard so that team members can draw on these. These are the three retrospective questions:

  • Good - what went well in the last sprint or in the last few weeks, where did you have fun?
  • The Bad - looking at the last Scrum sprint, what went not so well, maybe even bad? What was not so much fun?
  • Ugly - What was ugly, unpleasant, so that we should try to bring it into the “beautiful” area? Where can we bring about a turnaround?

By the way, you can do this retrospective online using our retrospective tool Echometer now (no registration necessary):

Conclusion - Agile Retrospective Good Bad Ugly

That’s how it goes! We can keep it pretty simple 🙂 However, before you decide on the agile retrospective ‘good bad ugly’, I would recommend that you also take a look at other approaches.

Specifically, you might want to have a look at our list of 32 retrospective ideas for beginners and pros - have fun!

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