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Round of Admiration (#76)

Participants express what they admire about one another
Source: Judith Andresen
Start a round of admiration by facing your neighbour and stating 'What I admire most about you is ...' Then your neighbour says what she admires about her neighbour and so on until the last participants admires you. Feels great, doesn't it?

Expectations (#62)

What can others expect of you? What can you expect of them?
Source: Valerie Santillo
Give each team member a piece of paper. The lower half is blank. The top half is divided into two sections:
  • What my team mates can expect from me
  • What I expect from my team mates
Each person fills out the top half for themselves. When everyone is finished, they pass their paper to the left and start reviewing the sheet that was passed to them. In the lower half they write what they personally expect from that person, sign it and pass it on.
When the papers made it around the room, take some time to review and share observations.

Wish granted (#50)

A fairy grants you a wish - how do you know it came true?
Source: Lydia Grawunder & Sebastian Nachtigall
Give participants 2 minutes to silently ponder the following question: 'A fairy grants you a wish that will fix your biggest problem at work overnight. What do you wish for?' Follow up with: 'You come to work the next morning. You can tell, that the fairy has granted your wish. How do you know? What is different now?' If trust within the group is high, let everyone describe their 'Wish granted'-workplace. If not, just tell the participants to keep their scenario in mind during the next phase and suggest actions that work towards making it real.

Dot Voting - Start, Stop, Continue (#12)

Brainstorm what to start, stop & continue and pick the top initiatives
Source: Agile Retrospectives
Divide a flip chart into boxes headed with 'Start', 'Continue' and 'Stop'. Ask your participants to write concrete proposals for each category - 1 idea per index card. Let them write in silence for a few minutes. Let everyone read out their notes and post them to the appropriate category. Lead a short discussion on what the top 20% beneficial ideas are. Vote on it by distributing dots or X's with a marker, e.g. 1, 2, and 3 dots for each person to distribute. The top 2 or 3 become your action items.

(Check out Paulo Caroli's 'Open the Box' for an awesome variation of this activity.)

Feedback Door - Numbers (ROTI) (#14)

Gauge participants' satisfaction with the retro on a scale from 1 to 5 in minimum time
Source: ALE 2011, Corinna Baldauf
Put sticky notes on the door with the numbers 1 through 5 on them. 1 is the topmost and best, 5 the lowest and worst.When ending the retrospective, ask your participants to put a sticky to the number they feel reflects the session. The sticky can be empty or have a comment or suggestion on it.

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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.