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Plan-ID:
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Why Retrospectives? (#46)

Ask 'Why do we do retrospectives?'
Source: Pete Roessler
Go back to the roots and start into the retrospective by asking 'Why do we do this?' Write down all answers for everyone to see. You might be surprised.

Repeat & Avoid (#80)

Brainstorm what to repeat and what behaviours to avoid
Source: Luis Goncalves
Head 2 flip charts with 'Repeat' and 'Avoid' respectively. The participants write issues for the columns on sticky notes - 1 per issue. You can also color code the stickies. Example categories are 'People', 'Process', 'Technology', ... Let everyone read out their notes and post them to the appropriate column. Are all issues unanimous?

Remember the Future (#37)

Imagine the next iteration is perfect. What is it like? What did you do?
Source: Luke Hohmann
'Imagine you could time travel to the end of the next iteration (or release). You learn that it was the best, most productive iteration yet! How do your future selves describe it? What do you see and hear?' Give the team a little time to imagine this state and jot down some keywords to aid their memory. Then let everyone describe their vision of a perfect iteration.
Follow up with 'What changes did we implement that resulted in such a productive and satisfying future?'Write down the answers on index cards to use in the next phase.

Outside In (#124)

Turn blaming others into actions owned by the team
Source: Ralph Miarka and Veronika Kotrba
If your team has a tendency to see obstacles outside of their team and influence and primarily wants others to change, you can try this activity:

Draw a big rectangle on the board and another rectangle inside of it, like a picture frame. Hang all complaints and grievances that surfaced in previous phases into the frame.

Now comes the interesting twist: Explain that if they want anything in the outside frame to change, they will have to do something themselves to affect that change. Ask the team to come up with actions they can do. Put these actions into the inner rectangle (near the outer sticky they are addressing).

Helped, Hindered, Hypothesis (#16)

Get concrete feedback on how you facilitated
Source: Agile Retrospectives
Prepare 3 flip chart papers titled 'Helped', 'Hindered', and 'Hypothesis' (suggestions for things to try out). Ask participants to help you grow and improve as a facilitator by writing you sticky notes and signing their initials so that you may ask questions later.

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Retromat contains 127 activities, allowing for 8349005 combinations (25x30x22x22x23+5) and we are constantly adding more.

Created by Corinna Baldauf

Corinna wished for something like Retromat during her Scrummaster years. Eventually she just built it herself in the hope that it would be useful to others, too. Any questions, suggestions or encouragement? You can email her or follow her on Twitter. If you like Retromat you might also like Corinna's blog and her summaries on Wall-Skills.com.

Co-developed by Timon Fiddike

Timon gives Scrum trainings. He mentors advanced scrum masters and advanced product owners. Human, dad, nerd, contact improv & tango dancer. He has used Retromat since 2013 and started to build new features in 2016. You can email him or follow him on Twitter. Photo © Ina Abraham.