Slowly but surely approaching again a special time of the year: Halloween🎃
Do you know how much money is spent on Halloween items every year? A lot! Every year, Americans invest around 6,7 billion dollars in sweets, costumes, pumpkins and Halloween parties for Halloween💰
With us, on the other hand, you get completely free ideas for Halloween retrospectives that pay tribute to this supernatural time🎉
Halloween Retrospective - Why?
This is an easy question to answer: You can reflect on your past meetings and tasks as a team with our Halloween retrospectives in keeping with the zombie theme, talk about spooky traditions together, and assess the stability of your performance pumpkin style🎃
Speaking of pumpkins, if you're interested in how much the heaviest pumpkin in the world weighed, stay tuned until the end🔍
For real Halloween fans that would certainly be reason enough, but we have even more aces up our sleeves😎
Halloween Warm-Up
A good warm-up is part of every good retrospective. It has been found that the speaking rate of all participants increases if they have already said something at the beginning as part of the warm-up🙊
Therefore, use one of our new Halloween warm-ups to match your Halloween retrospective!
Warm-Up: Your last week as a pumpkin
With this Retrospective Icebreaker idea, you can think and vote as a team on what your last week of work would look like as a pumpkin🎃 – see image below.
Why did each person decide the way they did? Everyone briefly answers this question in this Retrospective Icebreaker to get in the mood for the rest of the Reflection Workshop.
By the way, this Retrospective Icebreaker is of course also available in our Echometer Retrospective Tool and can be done on our whiteboard. You can access your retrospective directly via our Halloween Retrospective Ideas below or via the following link: Retro preparation in Echometer.
Halloween Retrospectives
If you are still not in the Halloween mood, wait for our Halloween retrospectives.
We have prepared 5 ideas for you, with which your Halloween retrospective is guaranteed to be successful!💯
Idea 1: Halloween Retrospective
This classic already exists in the Echometer app, but when, if not now, could this format be so aptly applied?
Open feedback questions
😱Fright: What was your fright moment in this sprint?
🍭Treats: What treats have we prepared for our stakeholders?
😈Tricks: What tricks (that may be played on us) do we need to watch out for?
Halloween Retro 2: Zombie Retrospective
Zombies are especially popular at Halloween – So why not reflect in zombie mode for a Halloween retrospective?
Open feedback questions
☠️Lifeless: What meeting felt lifeless lately?
🧟Zombie: Which tasks moved as slowly as a zombie?
❗Survival strategies: What survival strategies have helped us recently?
Retrospective Idea 3: BOO! Retrospective
This Halloween retrospective idea is scary good, you'll see. If these questions don't convince you, then maybe at least the level of witty wordplay just now👻
Open feedback questions
💀B for Bogeyman: What has been the Bogeyman in the last few weeks, so what has gotten in our way?
🔮O for Omen: What omens have you seen, good or bad?
👘O for Outfit: Which team member wore the prettiest Halloween costume and stood out positively in the last sprint?
Retrospective Question 4: Pumpkin
Retrospective
In a Halloween retrospective, something with pumpkins can not be missing, of course! The mystery of the heaviest pumpkin in the world is not yet solved here.
Open feedback questions
📄Paper Pumpkin: What have we glued that is just holding together but could break at any moment?
🏡Garden Pumpkin: What have we carved that is relatively stable but can still be improved?
🧱Clay Pumpkin: What have we formed that is rock solid?
Halloween Retrospective 5: Spooky traditions
Retrospective
Have you ever wondered why you do some things in your team the way you do and never found the right moment to address it? Then now is the right time to make up for it in this Halloween retrospective idea!
Open feedback questions
🎁Treat: What nice traditions should we keep?
✝️Trick: What spooky, unhelpful traditions should we say goodbye to?
🍭Candy: What traditions could we introduce?
If you don't feel any anticipation for your Halloween retrospective yet, it's really hard to crack. But we still have two last attempts up our sleeves.
A few zombies for Halloween
For example, how about a zombie-style Scrum Health Check? These health statements work just like the usual health check items and can make your Halloween retrospective perfect vervollständigen🧟♂️
Zombie Scrum Health Check
Health Check Questions
💚Our work results have a great impact.
💃🏻Our meetings are cheerful and engaging.
🏃🏼♂️Our topics move fast.
"Shoot the zombie" game
Or can our "Shoot the zombie" game convince you? This is a conversion of our well-known "shoot the balloon" game🎯.
Bonus retro game in Echometer
Duration: 1-5 minutes | Goal: Fun at the end of the retro
Idea: We have built a small bonus game in our Echometer Retro Tool: Do you know the game "Chicken Shoot"? Our game works on the same principle, only with hot air balloons – or on Halloween with zombies: Who in the team hits the most?
The screenshot above gives an overview of how the game works.
At the very end of the retrospective of Echometer there is a closing screen, the check-out (see at the top of the screenshot above). On that screen, you are asked how well the time was invested in the retro (aka ROTI score, see screenshot). Additionally, on that screen there is also a small balloon flying along the horizon in the background. What you need to know: As soon as any team member who is online in the Remote Retro clicks or shoots the balloon, this game is activated.
- Once that happened, each team member will see balloons flying back and forth at different speeds in the background of the retro check-out screen. The goal is to hit as many of them as possible.
- We recommend that you as the facilitator set a timer of 1 to 2 minutes as soon as the team starts playing.
- The winner can be identified via the counter in the upper left corner. The three team members with the most hits will be visible there. People with less points are not visible.
The goal of the game is simply to look forward to this little game at the end of the retro, on the one hand. On the other hand, you can leave the retro with a laugh through this game.
By the way: You don't have to actively promote the game. You can also just wait until one of the team members randomly clicks on the balloon and the game starts. It usually is a nice surprise 😄
Halloween Retrospectives - Conclusion⚡
So, are you ready for your Halloween retrospective? Well prepared you would be now in any case!😉
If our Halloween retrospective ideas aren't enough for you, check out this blog post: 54 Fun Retrospective ideas. There are 54 more ideas for retrospectives and therefore a lot of inspiration for your next retro.
Thanks to Echometer, you can create varied and creative retros in no time and be ready for the next retrospective at any time✨
🎃Finally, for all pumpkin fans there is now the weight of the heaviest pumpkin in the world: This specimen weighed 2.703 pounds and was therefore as heavy as a small car!
Want to start your first classic Halloween retrospective right away? Then try our Echometer tool for continuous improvement of agile teams:
Open feedback questions
😱Fright: What was your fright moment in this sprint?
🍭Treats: What treats have we prepared for our stakeholders?
😈Tricks: What tricks (that may be played on us) do we need to watch out for?
Most Agile Coaches and Scrum Masters run in circles...
...fixing superficial symptoms. Time to use psychology to foster sustainable mindset change.
