Three Little Pigs
Based on the fairy tale, this retrospective sorts the team's work by how sturdy it is. The house of straw stands for things that could easily fall apart, the house of sticks for what works but needs reinforcing, and the house of bricks for what is solid and stable. The playful metaphor makes it easy to spot fragile areas before they collapse.
Things that could easily fall apart
Roman
One script on one laptop runs the monthly billing job
Maria
No tests around the discount logic we changed twice
Things that are working but could be improved
Anna
Deploys work but still need a human to click through staging
Daria
Onboarding docs exist but are six months out of date
Things that are stong and stable
Maria
The CI pipeline has caught every broken migration this year
Kirill
Alerting is tuned — we heard about the outage before customers
How to run the activity:
- Divide the team into three groups, one for each category: House of Straws, House of Sticks, and House of Bricks.
- Give each team member a few minutes to reflect and write down the items they want to share in each category.
- Have each team member present their items to the corresponding group.
- Allow for open discussions within each group to further elaborate on the items.
- After the discussions, the teams can come together and share the key takeaways from each group.
- Identify any patterns or common themes that emerged from the discussions.
- Create action items based on the insights gained from the activity.
- Assign responsibilities for each action item and set a deadline for completion.
This activity helps teams to identify areas for improvement and focus on what is working well. By categorizing the items into "House of Straws", "House of Sticks", and "House of Bricks", the team can prioritize the items and come up with a plan of action to address the weaknesses and strengthen the strengths.
Similar templates
Other formats teams pair with this one — open any of them as a board in one click.
Dot Voting
A fast, democratic way to prioritize when there are more topics or ideas than time to discuss them. Everyone gets a limited number of dots to spend on the items that matter most to them, and the team's attention naturally flows to what gathers the most votes. It's a simple technique to reach quick alignment without long debates.
Speed Car Retrospective
The Speed Car pictures the team as a vehicle racing toward its goals. The engine is everything that makes the team go faster, while the parachute is whatever drags it back and slows it down. This compact, two-part metaphor sparks a focused conversation about accelerators and brakes in the team's way of working.
Happy - Meh - Sad
A quick emotional check-in that takes the team's temperature with just three faces. Participants sort their experiences into happy, meh and sad, giving a fast read on overall mood without heavy structure. It works well as a warm-up or for short, frequent retrospectives where time is tight.
Idea Prioritization
A focused format for turning a pile of ideas into a clear plan of action. The team sorts proposals into low, medium and high priority, making it obvious where to direct energy first. It's especially handy at the end of a brainstorm, when many ideas need to be ranked before anything can move forward.
Harry Potter
A themed retrospective that wraps familiar questions in the magic of Hogwarts. Felix Felicis collects the good things, Baruffio's Brain Elixir what the team learned, Petrificus Totalus what slowed it down, and the Triwizard Cup the shout-outs, all closing with clear action items. The playful framing lowers the guard and invites more candid feedback.
KALM Retrospective
KALM frames improvement around the value the team's practices deliver. Participants decide what to keep because it works, what to add that's currently missing, what to do more of and what to do less of. The four simple verbs make it easy to tune day-to-day habits without a heavy process.
