Thumbs up, Thumbs down, new ideas and recognition
A light, balanced format that keeps the conversation moving between the good, the bad and the forward-looking. The team marks what deserves a thumbs up, what gets a thumbs down, the new ideas worth trying and the people worth recognizing. Adding recognition to the mix keeps the tone positive while still leaving room for honest criticism.
What went well this sprint
Roman
Deploys are boring now — that is a compliment
Maria
Ticket refinement on Tuesday kept planning short
What went wrong or felt frustrating
Anna
Code review waited two days on average
Daria
We estimated the migration at three days, it took nine
Ideas worth trying, even half-formed ones
Maria
Add a smoke test that runs against staging after deploy
Kirill
Try a rotating facilitator for retro
Credit for people who made someone else's work easier
Daria
Sam took the pager two nights in a row without being asked
Roman
Lena's write-up of the incident saved us hours
New ideas and recognition to boost the morale of the team. The goal is to acknowledge the work and effort of team members in a positive way.
Here's how you can run the activity:
- Gather your team and give each member 5-10 minutes to reflect on the categories:
- Thumbs up: Things they liked and positive experiences
- Thumbs down: Things they disliked and could be improved
- New ideas: New things they would like to explore that might increase value
- Recognition: Acknowledge the good work and effort of colleagues
- Share and present the notes. If desired, vote to prioritize the notes.
- Group the notes together.
- As a team, create actions to improve based on the notes collected.
By conducting this activity, you can create a positive environment for your team and help them work together more efficiently.
Similar templates
Other formats teams pair with this one — open any of them as a board in one click.
Lean Coffee
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Dot Voting
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Speed Car Retrospective
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