The art of looking back: thoughtful questions for effective retrospectives
If you want to improve the effectiveness of your team, then you can’t avoid regularly reflecting on what your team has done and how you can do better in the future.
There are retrospective templates for precisely this purpose. These provide you with a catalog of questions that you can ask yourself as a team in order to support self-reflection in the best possible way.
A classic among retrospectives is, for example, the “good / bad” retrospective. In this, you ask yourself the two simple questions of what went “well” and what went “badly”. And even if these two questions seem very all-encompassing, they very quickly become boring and therefore only generate a few useful insights into the team’s opportunities for improvement.
And this is precisely why it is important to ask well thought-out retrospective questions in a retro. On the one hand, these bring variety to the retro ritual and, on the other, they reveal new perspectives on collaboration within the team.
6 Thoughtful Retrospective Questions:
Method 1: Agile Delivery Retrospective Questions
The first retrospective focuses on the agility of your team. This allows you to check whether your team is running like a well-oiled machine or whether a few points of friction are causing the whole thing to shake:
⚙️ Agile Delivery Retrospective: How the retro works
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Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)
Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.
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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.
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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.
- We get things done really fast. No waiting, no delays.
- We are able to estimate exactly what we can deliver in a given cycle and with the given resources.
- Our sprint results do not require any post sprint rework to be delivered.
- We limit our 'work in progress' to be focused at all times.
- When did our way of working lead to a suboptimal workflow? (e.g. unclear, inappropriate, or unenforced guidelines)
- When has our way of working worked well?
- What are recent examples for an increment that wasn't working / shippable at the end of the cycle?
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Catch-all question (Recommended)
So that other topics also have a place:
- What else would you like to talk about in the retro?
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Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)
On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.
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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.
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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.
⚙️ Agile Delivery Retrospective
Thoughtful Retrospective Questions
Method 2: Team Commitments Retrospective Questions
A team can only work really well if it pulls together and in the same direction. These retrospective questions address exactly that. Do you work together or against each other?
🤝Retro for Reflecting and Defining Team Commitments: How the retro works
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Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)
Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.
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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.
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Health Check
All team members can answer the health checks anonymously on a scale. Then go through the results of the health checks together and record any additional comments if necessary. If you use the same health checks in several retrospectives, you can also track trends over time in Echometer.
- As a team, we share a common understanding of what "good work" is.
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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.
- Handling of contradictory priorities: ‘When I encounter contradictory priorities, I …’
- Communication of blockers: ‘When I am stuck on a task, I announce this by …’
- Navigation of conflicts: ‘When I notice a conflict start to build up in our team, I …’
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Catch-all question (Recommended)
So that other topics also have a place:
- What else would you like to talk about in the retro?
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Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)
On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.
-
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.
-
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.
🤝Retro for Reflecting and Defining Team Commitments
Health Check Questions (Scale)
Open questions
Thoughtful Retrospective Questions
Method 3: Psychological safety - Health Check Retro questions
Since we’re already talking about reflection all the time, there needs to be a basis for it. The so-called “psychological safety”.
Only if this is available it makes sense to deal with further problems and potential in the team.
This is a health check retro - a retrospective where you answer the questions on a scale from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree”. These types of retrospectives usually take significantly less time. So it is optimal for a week in which time is already short or in connection with the question “what else do we want to talk about?”:
Psychological safety Health Check: How the retro works
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Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)
Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.
-
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.
-
Health Check
All team members can answer the health checks anonymously on a scale. Then go through the results of the health checks together and record any additional comments if necessary. If you use the same health checks in several retrospectives, you can also track trends over time in Echometer.
- I regularly receive useful feedback on how good my performance is and how I can improve.
- If a team member makes a mistake, they are not judged for it.
- You're allowed to not know things in our team.
- In conflicts, we talk on a factual level, so that no one feels personally attacked or judged.
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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.
- What else do we want to talk about?
-
Catch-all question (Recommended)
So that other topics also have a place:
- What else would you like to talk about in the retro?
-
Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)
On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.
-
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.
-
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.
Psychological safety Health Check
Health Check Questions (Scale)
Open questions
Thoughtful Retrospective Questions
Method 4: Battery Retrospective Questions
Do you have the feeling that your team has run out of steam recently? You can tackle this challenge with the appropriate questions from the battery retrospective:
Battery retrospective: How the retro works
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Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)
Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.
-
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.
-
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.
- How full is your personal battery as a percentage right now?
- What has drained your battery recently?
- What has recharged your battery recently?
- What would help you to save energy over the next few weeks?
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Catch-all question (Recommended)
So that other topics also have a place:
- What else would you like to talk about in the retro?
-
Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)
On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.
-
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.
-
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.
Battery retrospective
Thoughtful Retrospective Questions
Method 5: Future perspective questions
Normally, a retrospective always looks at the past, but a look into the future can also reveal a lot about the status of the team. That’s why you can also look at the future perspective questions from time to time:
🔮 Futurespective: How the retro works
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Random Icebreaker (2-5 minutes)
Echometer provides you with a generator for random check-in questions.
-
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.
-
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.
- What is the most important milestone you would like to see us achieve as a team in the next week(s)?
- Which hurdle should we focus on overcoming in the coming weeks?
- What would you be particularly grateful for in the coming week(s)?
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Catch-all question (Recommended)
So that other topics also have a place:
- What else would you like to talk about in the retro?
-
Prioritization / Voting (5 minutes)
On the retro board in Echometer, you can easily prioritize the feedback with voting. The voting is of course anonymous.
-
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.
-
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.
🔮 Futurespective
Thoughtful Retrospective Questions
Method 6: Bottleneck retrospective questions
Sometimes it happens that you have a lot of energy in the team and yet very little seems to happen. This phenomenon is often caused by bottlenecks in the team. To take a closer look at these circumstances, you can ask yourself the bottleneck retrospective questions:
Open feedback questions:
Our bottleneck: What is the critical part in our structures and processes that determines how much we as
Team can achieve?
What options are there for eliminating this one bottleneck?
Thoughtful Retrospective Questions
For good retrospectives, it’s not just the questions that need to be well thought out:
When it comes to holding truly exceptional retrospectives, you need to bring more to the table than a great retro template. Here are a few to-do’s and don’t-do’s for your next retrospective:
To-Do’s:
- Always use different formats for retrospectives to achieve a high level of engagement.
- Adapt the selection of retro questions to the circumstances in the team. Low energy in the team → battery retrospective questions.
- Create an open and shame-free atmosphere. This promotes the honesty and feedback quality of the team.
- Pay attention to the time. Short retrospectives are demonstrably more successful. Pay attention to time management and collect feedback for the questions before the retrospective.
- Celebrate your team. Only by recognizing the positive aspects of working together can a high level of self-esteem develop within the team.
Don’t-Do’s:
- Don’t treat the retrospective as a compulsory exercise. Nobody likes to do things involuntarily.
- Prevent people from becoming too dominant in a retro. This quickly ensures that others don’t feel heard.
- The retrospective must not become meaningless coffee gossip. That’s why you should never leave the retrospective without concrete measures.
- A retrospective is not a forum for complaints. Make sure that it is not about apportioning blame, but about finding solutions together.
Thoughtful Retrospective Questions
Conclusion - The art of looking back: well thought-out questions for effective retrospectives
As you can see in this article, good retrospectives are about more than just “some new retro formats”.
A good retrospective adapts to the circumstances in the team and this also includes the retro format that suits the situation.
Feel free to check out our more than 50 retro formats and test them for free - here you will find something for every situation:
