The Glad Sad Mad Retrospective Template

It's time to open up your heart! Help your team members talk about their feelings and what makes them glad, sad or mad.

Try this template for free Discover more retrospectives

Glad Sad Mad Retrospective Illustration for Neatro

Try this template for free Discover more retrospectives

Glad Mad Sad Retrospective Template in Neatro

What is the Glad Sad Mad retrospective?

This retrospective's level of difficulty is easy

Difficulty Level

Easy

Retrospectives are all about reflecting on past events and identifying areas of improvement for the team. Still, most retrospective templates focus on facts rather than accentuating the way team members actually feel.

Moreover, open questions like "How do you feel?" or "Is everything all right?" can be hard to answer, right?

The Glad Sad Mad retrospective idea is precisely what you need to let people talk about their feelings and emotions.

Thanks to this powerful technique, your team members are invited to share all the things that made them feel delighted (Glad), unhappy (Sad), or angry (Mad).

Do you want to learn how the team feels at the end of your current sprint or project? Do you want to foster psychological safety by letting people speak with their hearts? ❤️

Glad Sad Mad is the team activity you need!

The 3 elements of Glad Sad Mad

Glad

Things you are happy with.

e.g., despite the complexity of our project, we managed to handle all the user stories.

Sad

Things you are sad about.

e.g., Because of a bug, I had to stay late at work twice last week.

Mad

Things you are mad about.

e.g., some Daily Scrum meetings had to take 20+ minutes because we could not start on time.

Why & when should you use the Glad Sad Mad retrospective?

Don't forget that the Glad Sad Mad retrospective heavily relies on feelings, so make sure that the participants welcome all emotions from their peers.

This retrospective technique is helpful to:

Improve the overall team morale
Cultivate transparency and foster psychological safety
Implement healthy team dynamics

You can use the Glad Sad Mad template for any recurring team retrospective (Sprint Retrospective, project post-mortem), event retrospective, or self-reflection exercise.

As you've understood it, your team doesn't need to be "Agile" to care about its continuous improvement. Having frequent retrospectives with your team is an excellent way to inspect & adapt constantly. Glad Sad Mad can be a great activity for starting retrospectives with your team.

Where can I find the Glad Sad Mad retrospective?

Glad Sad Mad is a very popular activity, so why don't you give it a chance for your next retrospective? ;)

You can try the Glad Sad Mad model with your team for free by signing up for Neatro. No credit card is required. Note that participants do not need to create accounts to join an online retrospective in Neatro.