The Start Stop Continue Retrospective Template

A straightforward retrospective format. Help your team members identify what they need to start doing, stop doing, and continue doing to become even more effective.

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Start Stop Continue Retrospective Illustration for Neatro

Try this template for free Discover more retrospectives

Start Stop Continue Retrospective Template in Neatro

What is the Start Stop Continue retrospective template?

This retrospective's level of difficulty is easy

Difficulty Level

Easy

A retrospective isn't just about what just happened. A successful retrospective also deals with the present and the future of the team 🔮

Start Stop Continue is a well-known action-oriented retrospective technique. It is designed to let people share practical ideas to improve as a team.

This simple yet powerful retrospective framework leads your team to think about three core questions:

What should we start doing? (adjustments the team would be willing to implement in the next cycle)
What should we stop doing? (things that don't help the team / don't show results)
What should we continue doing? (activities that are working well, delivering results, and being positively perceived by the team)

The 3 elements of Start Stop Continue

Start

What our team should start doing.

e.g., do some pair programming to increase quality.

Stop

What our team should stop doing.

e.g., stop arriving late at daily stand-ups meetings.

Continue

What our team should keep doing.

e.g., having frequent retrospectives to foster transparency.

Why & when should you use the Start Stop Continue retrospective format?

Simply put, this retrospective technique helps your team reflect on the past Sprint events (Stop, Continue), but people also suggest how to handle the next Sprint (Start).

Then Start Stop Continue is obviously an excellent choice for recurring team retrospectives (whether you work with Sprints or not).

Besides, you can also use Start Stop Continue for your project post-mortems and event retrospectives.

Where can I find the Start Stop Continue retrospective template?

Start Stop Continue is a popular retrospective activity used by thousands of teams worldwide, so why wouldn't you give it a try with your team? ;)

You can try the Start Stop Continue 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.