3 WRAP retrospective examples and alternatives

Have you just searched for the “WRAP Retrospective” on Google or do you want to see examples and alternatives? Great, then you’ve come to the right place🎉

The WRAP Retrospective stands for “Wishes, Risks, Appreciation, Puzzles” and is a very popular retrospective when it comes to agile retros. So it’s no surprise that some teams have already held it many times and are looking for a change (alternatives will come later)👀

However, it is just as common for examples of WRAP Retro to be sought in order to make it even better in the future🔍

First things first: In my view, the “WRAP Retro” is a versatile retro. It not only deals with the classic questions of a retro in a creatively modified form (Good, Bad, Change), but also strengthens team cohesion through “Appreciation”. This has an immediate positive effect on the mood.
The WRAP Retro questions are:

🌞What do you wish for? (Wishes)

☔What risks do you see? (Risks)

⚡Who or what deserves appreciation? (Appreciation)

🧐 What is currently a puzzle for you? (Puzzle)

If you want to try this retrospective or any of 50+ other templates for free, you can do so in our agile team continuous improvement tool:

WRAP questions + template + examples

How to

WRAP 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.

   • Wishes: What do you wish for?
   • Risks: What risks do you see?
   • Appreciation: Who or what deserves appreciation?
   • Puzzles: What is currently a puzzle for you?

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.

WRAP Retrospective

Wishes: What do you wish for?

Risks: What risks do you see?

Appreciation: Who or what deserves appreciation?

Puzzles: What is currently a puzzle for you?

Open this retro now

As can be seen in the diagram, there are the following four “WRAP Retro” questions 👀

What do you wish for? (Wishes)⚗️

💡Example: You want more participation in discussions from other team members. The so-called “psychological safety” should therefore be improved. You could start by carrying out an agile team health check in 3 steps in the team.

👉🏽More information about: “ psychological safety %E2%80%9C or “ Team Health Checks in 3 steps %E2%80%9C.

What risks do you see? (Risks)⛔️

💡Example: The product backlog is getting longer and longer instead of shorter. A lot of chaos can arise here in the future. - You can plan less new things for the coming weeks and work more on the backlog.

Who or what deserves appreciation? (Appreciation)✅

💡Example: The design of the product could be significantly improved in a very manageable time! - The front-end developer deserves applause for that.

What is currently a puzzle for you? (Puzzle)🧩

💡Example: We are now using a new method to prioritize the tasks within the week. Although it is supposed to help, it feels much more stressful since the introduction of this method. - How can that be related?

"Many team members are afraid to speak up!"

Solve this challenge

"We discover too many unexpected issues & bugs at a late stage!"

Solve this challenge

"Why does it sometimes take me hours to prepare a simple retrospective?"

Solve this challenge

As nice as the WRAP retrospective may be, the same applies here: If you use a retrospective too often in too short a time, retro exhaustion sets in. This means that the participants get the feeling that the same thing is always being said and the retro loses its usefulness. That’s why we’ll give you a few suitable alternatives below to prevent this monotony from occurring in the first place💤

Important: It’s not just a matter of reframing the same questions (What worked well? -> What made us happy?), but to really encourage new perspectives on what is happening in the team.

If the team seems unmotivated at the moment, for example, you can take a closer look at this circumstance with the “Battery Retrospective”🔍

Also, a retro such as the “Psychological Safety Retro” can help to increase engagement in the team in the future.🔝

Or you just want to see how you look at the future instead of always reflecting on what has already happened. The “Future Retrospective” is ideal for this. 🫡

👉🏽More information and the templates for these retrospectives: Well thought-out questions for effective retrospectives

I could go on with this list forever. If you are interested in seeing not just these three, but 26 alternatives to the WRAP retrospective, please read our blog article on the subject:  26 Refreshing Agile Retrospective Templates

Conclusion - WRAP Retrospective and Alternatives

I could write for hours about the WRAP retrospective, but I don’t want to make it any more complicated than it is.

So if you’re looking for a crisp retro, the WRAP Retrospective is the perfect choice🎉

Would you like to start your first WRAP retrospective right away? Then try out our Echometer tool for the continuous improvement of agile teams💥

How to

WRAP 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.

   • Wishes: What do you wish for?
   • Risks: What risks do you see?
   • Appreciation: Who or what deserves appreciation?
   • Puzzles: What is currently a puzzle for you?

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.

WRAP Retrospective

Wishes: What do you wish for?

Risks: What risks do you see?

Appreciation: Who or what deserves appreciation?

Puzzles: What is currently a puzzle for you?

Open this retro now