Running a sprint retrospective is easier when you start from a clear board structure. Below is the full set of retrospective board templates on Code Kudu—each one is free to read and use as a reference for your next retro, with columns, facilitation tips, and when to use the format.
Pick a template, open its guide, and adapt the columns to your team's context. If you want structured retrospectives inside your workflow, you can also explore retrospectives on the Code Kudu platform.
All 30 templates
Each entry includes a short “when to use” note from the full guide. Follow the link for columns, facilitation steps, and variations.
- 4Ls RetrospectiveThe 4Ls is ideal for teams that are past the initial forming stage and ready for deeper reflection. It works particularly well after a sprint where significant new territory was explored—a new technology adoption, a complex integration, or a shift in team composition. These situations generate rich material for the "Learned" column that simpler formats would miss.
- DAKIDAKI is most powerful during periods of process optimization—when the team has established ways of working but suspects they are carrying unnecessary weight. It is the ideal format for a "spring cleaning" retro where the explicit goal is to simplify and streamline. Use it quarterly or after a team has run the same processes for three to four months without review.
- Energy Levels RetrospectiveThis format is most valuable during or after periods of sustained effort—long projects, multiple consecutive sprints without a break, or times when the team is carrying a heavy operational burden alongside development work. It is also excellent when you notice early signs of burnout: declining enthusiasm, increased sick days, reduced participation in team activities, or a general sense of going through the motions.
- ESVP Explorer Shopper Vacationer PrisonerESVP is most valuable as a pre-retro check-in when you suspect engagement may be low or when you want to calibrate your facilitation approach based on real data. Use it at the start of a retrospective, before launching into the main format. It takes only five to ten minutes and provides invaluable insight into the room energy.
- Happy - Meh - SadHappy - Meh - Sad is ideal for teams that are introverted, new to emotional retrospectives, or culturally uncomfortable with strong emotional expression. It provides an on-ramp to deeper emotional formats—once the team is comfortable with this three-point scale, they can graduate to Mad Sad Glad or more nuanced emotional formats.
- Hope - Worry - Risk - MitigationThis format is ideal at the beginning of a new project, before a major release, or at any point where the team faces significant upcoming uncertainty. It is the perfect format for sprint zero or iteration zero when the team is planning but has not yet started execution. It is also valuable before a team or organizational change—new members joining, reorganization, or technology migration—when the future feels uncertain.
- Hot Air Balloon RetrospectiveThe Hot Air Balloon format is particularly effective when a team needs to discuss both external pressures and internal motivation simultaneously. Use it after a turbulent period—organizational restructuring, major pivots, or extended crunch—when the team needs to process what happened and assess their readiness to move forward. The storms column explicitly creates space for external factors that other formats often ignore.
- KALMKALM is ideal for mature teams that have established working patterns and need to fine-tune them. It works best when the team is not in crisis but feels that their ways of working could be more efficient. Think of it as a performance tuning tool rather than a firefighting tool. It is well-suited for quarterly reviews or whenever the team senses that the current balance of activities is slightly off.
- Keep Problem TryKPT is ideal as a regular sprint retrospective format for teams that value simplicity and experimentation. Its compact three-column structure makes it fast to facilitate—most teams complete a productive KPT session in 30 to 45 minutes, making it practical for teams with tight schedules or those who find longer retros draining.
- Lean CoffeeLean Coffee is ideal when the team has varied, potentially unrelated concerns that do not fit neatly into a single framework. Use it when standard retrospective formats feel constraining—when the team has issues ranging from technical debt to communication patterns to career development and no single framework accommodates them all. It is also excellent when retrospective fatigue has set in and the team needs a format that feels different.
- Liked - Lacked - ChangeLiked - Lacked - Change is ideal for teams that struggle with action item follow-through. If your retros consistently produce five or more action items and fewer than half get completed, this format discipline of focusing on one meaningful change will improve your improvement rate. It is also excellent for busy teams with limited retro time—a productive session can run in 20 to 30 minutes.
- Mad Sad GladMad Sad Glad is most valuable when team dynamics need attention. Use it after a particularly intense sprint, during periods of conflict, after team composition changes, or when you sense unspoken tensions beneath the surface. It is also excellent as a periodic check-in every four to six sprints, even when things seem fine, because it reveals simmering issues before they become crises.
- Mountain Climber RetrospectiveThe Mountain Climber format excels during multi-sprint initiatives where the team needs to maintain motivation and strategic alignment over an extended period. Use it at mid-project checkpoints, quarterly reviews, or after completing a significant milestone that represents reaching a new altitude. It is especially valuable when the team is climbing toward a big, ambitious goal and needs to stay oriented toward the summit.
- Pizza RetroThe Pizza Retro is perfect when the team needs to have a serious conversation about foundations versus features in a non-threatening way. Use it when the team has been focused on toppings (features, polish, user-facing work) at the expense of crust (infrastructure, testing, documentation). The pizza metaphor makes this trade-off visible and discussable without triggering defensiveness.
- Plus DeltaPlus Delta is the ideal default format for teams that are new to retrospectives or for contexts where time is extremely limited. A productive Plus Delta session can run in as little as 15 to 20 minutes, making it practical for teams that struggle to carve out time for longer retros. It is also excellent for non-engineering contexts—use it after client meetings, workshops, presentations, or any collaborative event.
- Pre-mortemThe Pre-mortem is most valuable before a high-stakes milestone: a major release, a new product launch, a migration, or the start of a critical project phase. Use it when the consequences of failure are significant and the team would benefit from proactive risk identification. It is also valuable before entering uncharted territory—new technologies, new markets, or new team compositions—where historical data about what goes wrong is limited.
- Rose Bud ThornRose Bud Thorn excels when a team is in a growth phase—onboarding new members, adopting new technologies, or expanding into new domains. The "Bud" column is specifically designed for these transitional periods where potential is abundant but unrealized. It is also excellent for product teams that practice design thinking, as the shared vocabulary creates continuity between discovery and delivery processes.
- Sailboat RetrospectiveThe Sailboat Retrospective shines at the beginning of a new project phase, after a major release, or at a mid-project checkpoint. Its forward-looking elements make it ideal when the team needs to balance reflection on past performance with strategic thinking about upcoming challenges. It works particularly well for teams of five to twelve people and fits naturally into a 60-minute session.
- Scrum Values RetrospectiveThis format is most valuable for Scrum teams that want to deepen their practice beyond mechanical process compliance. Use it when the team is technically following Scrum but the outcomes are not improving—this often indicates that the ceremonies are happening but the underlying values are not being lived. It is also excellent for newly formed Scrum teams establishing their culture, as it explicitly names the behaviors expected in a healthy Scrum team.
- Speed Car RetrospectiveThe Speed Car format is particularly valuable when a team is focused on delivery speed and needs to evaluate whether their guardrails are appropriately calibrated. Use it after a release where the team felt either dangerously fast (shipping without adequate quality checks) or frustratingly slow (too much process overhead). The parachute-versus-engine conversation helps teams find the right balance between speed and safety.
- Starfish RetrospectiveThe Starfish is ideal when your team has a mature set of practices that need fine-tuning rather than wholesale replacement. It works best mid-project when the team has established routines but senses they are not optimally calibrated. Use it quarterly or every six to eight sprints as a comprehensive ways-of-working review, complementing simpler formats used for regular sprint retros.
- Start - Stop - ContinueThis format excels when a team feels overloaded with processes and needs to prune. If your team has accumulated ceremonies, reports, or approvals that nobody questions but everyone resents, the "Stop" column creates a safe space to challenge the status quo. It is also ideal for teams transitioning between project phases—finishing one initiative and kicking off another—because it forces a deliberate reset of working agreements.
- The Good - The Bad - The UglyUse this format when you sense the team is avoiding important conversations. Signs include recurring problems that are acknowledged privately but never discussed in retros, or a pattern of polite but superficial feedback that does not lead to real change. The Ugly column breaks through politeness barriers and creates space for radical honesty.
- Three Little Pigs RetrospectiveThis format is ideal after a release or project milestone when the team can evaluate the quality of what they shipped. It works especially well after an incident or production issue that exposed fragility—the wolf has already blown, and the team can reflect on which houses survived and which did not. It is also valuable when the team is accumulating technical debt and needs a constructive way to discuss the trade-offs between shipping fast and building to last.
- Thumbs Up - Thumbs Down - New Ideas - RecognitionThis format is ideal for teams that need a morale boost or that are in a creative phase where new ideas are welcome. Use it after a sprint where the team delivered well but feels disconnected, or when innovation has stagnated and the team needs encouragement to think differently. It is also excellent for teams that work hard but rarely acknowledge each other contribution—the Recognition column fills a fundamental human need that task-focused formats overlook.
- Traffic LightThe Traffic Light format is ideal for release readiness assessments, sprint health checks, and situations where the team needs to quickly build a shared picture of project status. It is especially valuable before a major release or at a project milestone when stakeholders need a clear, concise summary of where things stand. The format produces output that is immediately shareable with leadership and other teams.
- Weather Forecast RetrospectiveThis format is ideal when the team needs to process a mixed experience and plan for what is ahead. Use it at the boundary between sprints or project phases, especially when the upcoming period has significant uncertainty. It is particularly valuable after a sprint that had both high points and low points—the weather spectrum accommodates this complexity better than binary good/bad formats.
- Went Well - To Improve - Action ItemsThis format works best as your default retrospective when the team is new to agile or when you need a reliable fallback after experimenting with other formats. It suits teams of any size from three to fifteen people, though larger groups benefit from splitting into smaller breakout sessions before combining results.
- Winning - Puzzling - ImprovingThis format excels with larger teams of eight to fifteen people where the diversity of perspectives means that what is puzzling to one person may be understood by another. The cross-pollination of insights that happens when someone explains a puzzle and another person says "oh, I know why that happened" is one of the most valuable moments in any retrospective. Larger groups increase the probability of these breakthrough connections.
- WWW (Worked - Kinda worked - Did not work)WWW is ideal after a major release, a project milestone, or at the end of a quarter when the team has concrete outcomes to evaluate. It works best when there is data to reference—velocity metrics, bug counts, customer feedback, or deployment frequency. The outcome-focused nature of the format rewards teams that can point to evidence rather than relying solely on subjective impressions.