The What Went Well Retrospective Template
What is the What Went Well retrospective?
What worked well? What didn't go so well? How could we improve in our next Sprint? These are three existential questions that thousands of Agile teams raise at the end of each Sprint - or work cycle.
But wait! First things first, let's see a definition of what a retrospective is supposed to be.
“A retrospective is a chance for a team to reflect and learn from the past within a structured meeting. The main aim is to inspect the situation and adapt to the reality.” - Aino Vonge Corry, Retrospectives Antipatterns
Simply put, the purpose of retrospectives is to help teams improve continuously.
Traditionally, a retrospective would allow a team to reflect collectively on three key questions: "What went well?", "What didn't go so well?", "How could we improve?".
Good news, this is exactly what the What Went Well retrospective template has to offer. 👌
The 3 elements of What Went Well
Why & when should you use the What Went Well retrospective template?
What Went Well is undoubtedly simple but goes straight to the point. It is by far the most common retrospective format you can find.
This template will surely work for any Sprint retrospective, project post-mortem or event retrospective of yours.
What Went Well is highly recommended for new teams and/or for teams willing to conduct a retrospective for the first time.
Also, this exercise could perfectly do the trick for your first online retrospective with a new tool.
Remember that learning how to master a new tool might be difficult (whether the tool isn't super intuitive or your teammates usually don't feel really comfortable with new software), so we recommend that you always pick a simple activity, such as What Went Well, to get things started.
Before you dive into your next retrospective, here's a piece of advice: take the time to go through each comment posted by your team members. Let the discussions flow and then collectively determine action items - on which the team commits to start improving quickly. Even though What Went Well looks super simple, you need to give people time to express themselves.
What Went Well is among the most used retrospective techniques worldwide - we're kinda sure it is actually the number one, based on our experience.
You can try the What Went Well 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.
Discover Neatro's retrospective templates
