Retro Format Picker,
6 Questions.
Start/Stop/Continue, Mad/Sad/Glad, 4Ls, Sailboat, Five Whys, or Lean Coffee? Answer 6 questions about your last sprint and team state; get a recommendation with run-of-meeting steps and watchouts.
Question 1 of 6
Looking for the concept, not the tool? Read the Retrospective glossary entry.
When each format wins
Start / Stop / Continue
The default. Three columns, low cognitive load. Best for first-time retros, large teams, or when nothing specific went wrong.
Mad / Sad / Glad
Surfaces morale before facts. Best after a rough sprint or when restarting retro practice with low team energy.
4Ls (Liked/Learned/Lacked/Longed for)
More structured than Start/Stop/Continue. Forces reflection on growth, not just behaviour.
Sailboat
Forward-looking. Best at end of release cycle or before a new initiative; vision, drag, risks, goal.
Five Whys
Root-cause for one specific failure. Best when action items keep recurring or after an incident.
Lean Coffee
Open agenda, dot-voted, time-boxed. Best for small teams who self-organise well.
Related
Sprint Retrospectives Toolkit
Full cluster: retro formats, action tracker, why retros die, sprint review without theatre.
Open the toolkitRetro Action Tracker template
Markdown template that survives across sprints. Owners, due dates, status; and a kill-list for items that keep slipping.
Open templateWhy retros die; and the structural fix
The format is rarely the problem. Read this if your action items never land.
ReadStop running the same retro every sprint.
SprintFlint records action items as tickets, tracks them across sprints, and surfaces the ones that keep slipping. The retro becomes a system, not a meeting.
Want this built into your sprint board?
SprintFlint surfaces velocity, capacity, burndown, and cycle time automatically; no calculator, no spreadsheet, no plugin maze. Free for the first 300 tickets. No credit card.