Retro Prompts

Run retrospectives that end in real change.

A pack of question prompts for team retrospectives, for facilitators, leads and anyone who runs one. Each card is a single question rather than a method, grouped by stage: opening up, rebuilding what happened, how it felt, digging for causes, giving credit, finding ideas, choosing actions and closing. Two extra suits cover wrapping up a long project and reviewing a setback.

120 questions · 10 suits · 5 recipes · 2 missions

What's inside

Opening Up12Is the retro about to start?
What Happened12Does the team remember the period differently?
Highs and Lows12Is there a feeling in the room nobody has named?
Digging Deeper12Do the same problems keep coming back?
Credit Due12Has good work gone unthanked?
Fresh Ideas12Is the team jumping straight to the first fix?
Deciding12Is it time to choose what to change?
Closing Out12Is the retro nearly over?
Project Wrap12Has a long project just finished?
After a Setback12Did something just go wrong?

Sample questions

Opening Up

In one word, how did this stretch of work feel?

What Happened

What did we set out to do, and what did we actually do?

Digging Deeper

Why did that happen, and what caused that cause in turn?

Fresh Ideas

What's the smallest change that would have helped the most?

Deciding

Of everything on the board, which one change would make the biggest difference?

Project Wrap

How close did the result come to what we promised at the start?

Recipes

Fifteen-Minute Retro: Run a short retro when time is tight.
Fortnightly Team Retro: Run the regular hour-long retro through every phase, one prompt at a time.
New Team's First Retro: Run a new team's first retro, building safety and the habit.
Steady After A Setback: Run a blameless retro after a failure or incident.
Whole-Project Wrap-Up: Look back on a whole project before the team moves on.

Missions

Build a retro question bank: from the same three questions every fortnight to a rotation of prompts for each phase, chosen for this team, with a note of what was asked when.
Turn a setback into shared lessons: from a sore, quiet team after something went wrong to a blameless written account of what happened, what helped, and no more than two owned fixes.

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