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Weather Forecast Retrospective

A vivid metaphor that describes the sprint as a weather forecast. Stormy stands for the turbulent issues, rainy for the troublesome challenges, cloudy for the things that turned out rosy and sunny for what felt bright and successful. The imagery makes it easy to express how the sprint felt and to spot patterns across several retrospectives.
Stormy

What has been tempestuous? Meaning: What issues have you been confronted with? In your opinion, what stooped team productivity to advance?

Roman

Roman

The outage took two days out of the sprint
Maria

Maria

Scope changed twice after planning and nobody moved the date
Rainy

What has been troublesome? Meaning: What challenges did you face during the project? Were you able to overcome it? How? What did you do to solve the issues?

Anna

Anna

Flaky tests forced reruns on almost every build
Daria

Daria

Staging was broken for three days and nobody owned it
Cloudy

What has been rosy? Meaning: What were the positive experiences you have had so far? Did things go well according to what initially was planned? Did you have support from your colleagues?

Maria

Maria

The migration landed, but only one person understood the rollback
Kirill

Kirill

We hit the goal, though the last two days were rushed
Sunny

What has been bright? Meaning: Do you think that the sprint goals have been met? Do you feel positive and happy about your contribution to the team's outcome?

Daria

Daria

Zero rollbacks and review turnaround under a day
Roman

Roman

The new hire shipped to production in week one
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What is a Weather Forecast Retrospective?

The Weather Forecast Retrospective uses a simple weather metaphor to help a team reflect on how the last sprint actually felt. Cards are sorted from Stormy to Sunny, turning mood and momentum into something easy to see and talk about. The QRetro template gives you four columns that move from rough conditions to clear skies.

  • Stormy — things that went badly and caused real pain.
  • Rainy — frustrations and recurring annoyances.
  • Cloudy — uncertain or mixed experiences.
  • Sunny — wins and bright spots worth celebrating.

Stormy

Stormy captures the worst moments of the sprint — blockers, failures or conflicts that hurt the team. Naming them openly is the first step to making sure they do not repeat.

Rainy

Rainy is for the steady drizzle of friction: small but recurring annoyances that drag morale down over time. Grouping them often reveals a pattern worth fixing.

Cloudy

Cloudy holds the in-between — things that were unclear, uncertain or could go either way. These cards often spark the most useful discussion about what to watch next.

Sunny

Sunny is where the team celebrates what went well. Recognizing wins keeps energy high and reminds everyone which habits are worth keeping.

Benefits of the Weather Forecast Retrospective

  • Makes team mood visible through an intuitive metaphor.
  • Invites honest sharing in a light, low-pressure format.
  • Balances problems with recognition of what worked.
  • Reveals patterns across the spectrum of experiences.
  • Engages even quieter team members.
  • Leads naturally to concrete improvement actions.

How to run a Weather Forecast Retrospective

  1. Create a board in QRetro using the Weather Forecast Retrospective template.
  2. Ask everyone to add cards to the column matching how each moment felt.
  3. Give the team a few quiet minutes to write before sharing.
  4. Group similar cards and discuss the Stormy and Rainy clusters first.
  5. Celebrate the Sunny column and note habits to keep.
  6. Turn the key insights into action items with owners.

Similar templates

Other formats teams pair with this one — open any of them as a board in one click.
ESVP (Explorers, Shoppers, Vacationers, Prisoners)
An opening activity that gauges how people feel about being in the retrospective itself. Anonymously, everyone places themselves as an explorer eager for new ideas, a shopper open to one useful takeaway, a vacationer glad for a break or a prisoner who'd rather be elsewhere. The result helps the facilitator read the room and adjust the session to the team's real mood.
SOAR Analysis
A strengths-based alternative to SWOT that keeps the conversation positive and ambitious. The team examines its strengths and opportunities, articulates its aspirations and defines the results that will show those goals were met. By focusing on potential rather than problems, SOAR is well suited to strategy sessions and teams setting a bold direction.
Pre Mortem
A forward-looking format that imagines failure before it happens. The team pretends the project has already failed and asks why — what went wrong, what wasn't done, which problems remain and what other concerns linger. Surfacing risks at the start makes them far easier to prevent than to fix after the fact.
Went Well - To Improve - Action Items
A classic retrospective for reviewing the results of a sprint or stage of work. The team captures what worked well, where it lost momentum and which concrete steps will move things forward. The simple three-column structure keeps the focus balanced between celebrating successes and turning problems into action items that the team can actually take ownership of.
Start - Stop - Continue
An action-oriented format that pushes the team toward concrete decisions rather than abstract discussion. Participants name practices worth starting, those to stop because they get in the way, and the ones that already work and should continue. The result is a clear, immediately usable list of changes that supports a culture of continuous improvement.
4Ls Retrospective
A simple, popular method for Scrum Masters and their teams that captures both the positive and the negative sides of a sprint. Across four lenses — what people liked, what they learned, what they lacked and what they longed for — the team gathers honest feedback and turns it into ideas for improvement. The structure makes it easy for everyone to contribute, even in quieter teams.
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