4 Interesting Sprint Retrospective Templates + Download

In this article, we’ll show you some examples of different types of sprint retrospective templates that you can use for your agile team. We’ll also give you some tips and best practices for running effective sprint retrospectives:

There are many different sprint retrospective templates available on the web, each with its own features, advantages and disadvantages. Depending on your team’s needs and preferences, you can choose the template that best suits you. Here are some examples of popular sprint retrospective templates that you can access directly online:

1. Retrospective Icebreaker Template

To have a good retrospective, you first need to get off to a good start. To achieve this, there are so-called “icebreakers”. These are often designed to be funny and have only one purpose - to break the ice of your team for the retro and thus involve them more in the retrospective:

Retro icebreaker game:

Of course, after an icebreaker come the classic retrospective questions. One of the most popular templates for this is the simple Keep Stop Start Retrospective:

How to

Keep stop start retro: How the retro works

1. Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)

   Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.

2. Review of open actions (2-5 minutes)

   Before starting with new topics, you should talk about what has become of the measures from past retrospectives to check their effectiveness. Echometer automatically lists all open action items from past retros.

3. Discuss retro topics

   Use the following open questions to collect your most important findings. First, everyone does it themselves, covered. Echometer allows you to reveal each column of the retro board individually in order to then present and group the feedback.

   • Keep: What should we keep?
   • Stop: What should we stop doing?
   • Start: What should we start doing?

4. Catch-all question (Recommended)

   So that other topics also have a place:

   • What else would you like to talk about in the retro?

5. Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)

   On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.

6. Define actions (10-20 minutes)

   You can create a linked action via the plus symbol on a feedback. Not sure which measure would be the right one? Then open a whiteboard on the topic via the plus symbol instead to brainstorm root causes and possible measures.

7. Checkout / Closing (5 minutes)

   Echometer enables you to collect anonymous feedback from the team on how helpful the retro was. This creates the ROTI score ("Return On Time Invested"), which you can track over time.

Keep stop start retro

Keep: What should we keep?

Stop: What should we stop doing?

Start: What should we start doing?

Open this retro now Customize...

Of course, you can also wrap a retrospective in a real story. This is exactly what happened with this Reto, which is based on the fairy tale of the same name.

How to

Three Little Pigs Retro 🐷: How the retro works

1. Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)

   Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.

2. Review of open actions (2-5 minutes)

   Before starting with new topics, you should talk about what has become of the measures from past retrospectives to check their effectiveness. Echometer automatically lists all open action items from past retros.

3. Discuss retro topics

   Use the following open questions to collect your most important findings. First, everyone does it themselves, covered. Echometer allows you to reveal each column of the retro board individually in order to then present and group the feedback.

   • House of straw: What do we do that is just holding together, but could topple over at any moment? 🌱
   • House of sticks: What do we do that is relatively stable, but could be improved?\n 🪵
   • House of bricks: What do we do that is rock solid? 🪨

4. Catch-all question (Recommended)

   So that other topics also have a place:

   • What else would you like to talk about in the retro?

5. Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)

   On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.

6. Define actions (10-20 minutes)

   You can create a linked action via the plus symbol on a feedback. Not sure which measure would be the right one? Then open a whiteboard on the topic via the plus symbol instead to brainstorm root causes and possible measures.

7. Checkout / Closing (5 minutes)

   Echometer enables you to collect anonymous feedback from the team on how helpful the retro was. This creates the ROTI score ("Return On Time Invested"), which you can track over time.

Three Little Pigs Retro 🐷

House of straw: What do we do that is just holding together, but could topple over at any moment? 🌱

House of sticks: What do we do that is relatively stable, but could be improved?\n 🪵

House of bricks: What do we do that is rock solid? 🪨

Open this retro now Customize...

And last but not least, you can of course create a very specific mood with a retro.
How about a cozy campfire, for example? - Please make sure you don’t start a real fire in your office 😉:

How to

Campfire Retrospective 🔥: How the retro works

1. Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)

   Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.

2. Review of open actions (2-5 minutes)

   Before starting with new topics, you should talk about what has become of the measures from past retrospectives to check their effectiveness. Echometer automatically lists all open action items from past retros.

3. Discuss retro topics

   Use the following open questions to collect your most important findings. First, everyone does it themselves, covered. Echometer allows you to reveal each column of the retro board individually in order to then present and group the feedback.

   • Warm fire: What made you feel good in the last sprint?
   • Turned to ashes: What did not work as desired and crumbled to ashes?
   • The shooting star: What do you wish for the future?

4. Catch-all question (Recommended)

   So that other topics also have a place:

   • What else would you like to talk about in the retro?

5. Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)

   On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.

6. Define actions (10-20 minutes)

   You can create a linked action via the plus symbol on a feedback. Not sure which measure would be the right one? Then open a whiteboard on the topic via the plus symbol instead to brainstorm root causes and possible measures.

7. Checkout / Closing (5 minutes)

   Echometer enables you to collect anonymous feedback from the team on how helpful the retro was. This creates the ROTI score ("Return On Time Invested"), which you can track over time.

Campfire Retrospective 🔥

Warm fire: What made you feel good in the last sprint?

Turned to ashes: What did not work as desired and crumbled to ashes?

The shooting star: What do you wish for the future?

Open this retro now Customize...

Of course, we have many more templates up our sleeve. Try them out by testing our tool or have a look at this article: 22 Refreshing Agile Retrospective Templates

Basically, I would not recommend using an offline template for retrospectives, as this entails many disadvantages. Even if you hold the retro “on-site” with the team, online retrospectives offer advantages such as a digital preliminary survey.
Here are some advantages of online retros, which is why I personally don’t use offline retros or templates anymore:

• Online retrospectives are more convenient and accessible. You don’t have to worry about downloading, printing or distributing the templates to your team members. You can simply share a link or invite them to join an online platform where they can access and edit the templates in real time. This is especially useful if you have a team working in different locations or time zones.
• Online retrospectives are more interactive and engaging. You can use different features and tools to make your retrospectives more fun and collaborative. For example, emojis, stickers, gifs, or polls are a great way to express your feelings, opinions, or preferences. You can also use chat, audio or video to communicate with your team members and share your feedback. And features like timers, reminders, and notifications help keep your retrospectives on track and focused.
• Online retrospectives are more flexible and customizable. You can easily customize and modify the templates to fit your team’s needs and preferences. You can choose from a variety of templates that are available online. Moreover, you can create your own templates or combine different elements from different templates. Last but not least, you can save, export or share your retrospectives with other teams or stakeholders.

I think it’s pretty clear that we don’t recommend downloading offline retrospectives. If you still want to do it, you can use for example this Excel template we created HERE.
Please note that you cannot edit it in the original file. However, you can click on “File” > “Download” > “microsoft excel (.xlsx)” to download the template and paste it into your own Excel spreadsheet, where you can do whatever you want with it.

Using a sprint retrospective template can make your meetings more productive and efficient. However, there are also some tips and best practices you should follow to ensure your retrospectives are effective and meaningful. Here are some of them:

• Prepare: Before the meeting, make sure all participants have access to the template and know how to use it. It also makes sense to ask participants to think about their feedback and write it down beforehand.
• Set a clear goal: State the purpose and goal of the retrospective at the beginning of the session. The ground rules and expectations for the discussion should also be established.
• Encourage participation: Make sure everyone has a chance to speak and provide feedback during the meeting. You can also use techniques such as voting, grouping, or point voting to prioritize the most important or relevant topics.
• Focus on solutions: After identifying the problems or challenges, try to find concrete actions or solutions that the team can implement in the next project or sprint. Assign responsibilities and deadlines for each action item.
• Follow-up: After the meeting, document the results and share them with the team. You can also monitor the progress and impact of the action items and report back to the team regularly.

For all these best practices, we have developed functions in our own tool “Echometer” that allow you to easily prepare a retrospective in less than 2 minutes and implement all the best practices without having to worry about it.

By the way, we also have many seasonal retrospective ideas in it (for example: 6 Thanksgiving Retrospective Ideas ).

Try our tool with more than 50 retrospective templates for free: