30 retrospective questions that get honest answers

Good retrospective questions are specific, about the work rather than people, and safe to answer honestly. The classic formats — start/stop/continue, went well/didn’t go well, mad/sad/glad — all work, but they work much better when everyone answers before discussion starts. Otherwise the retro anchors on whatever the first person says out loud.

Which check-in questions open a retro well?

One quick question to get everyone typing before the real ones.

1. In one word, how did this sprint feel? (word cloud)
2. Rate the sprint overall. (1–5)
3. How is your energy level right now? (1–5)
4. If this sprint were weather, what would it be? (sunny / cloudy / stormy / mixed)

What went well? Questions to find what to keep

1. What went better than you expected this sprint?
2. What’s one thing a teammate did that made your work easier?
3. Which practice should we definitely keep doing?
4. What are you most proud of from this sprint?
5. Where did collaboration work especially well?

What didn’t go well? Questions that surface real problems

These are the ones that go quiet when answers have names attached.

1. What slowed you down the most this sprint?
2. Where did you wait on something or someone?
3. What surprised you in a bad way?
4. What did we say we’d do but didn’t?
5. Which meeting or process felt like a waste of time?
6. Was there a decision you disagreed with but didn’t raise?
7. What’s the biggest risk for the next sprint?

Start, stop, continue questions

1. What should we start doing?
2. What should we stop doing?
3. What should we continue doing?
4. What’s one experiment we could try for just one sprint?

Team health questions

Ask these every few sprints and watch the trend, not the single number.

1. How sustainable was your workload this sprint? (1–5)
2. Do you feel safe raising problems in this team? (1–5)
3. How clear were priorities this sprint? (1–5)
4. Did you have what you needed to do your best work? (yes / partly / no)
5. How well did we communicate with other teams? (1–5)

Action item questions to close the retro

1. Which one problem should we fix first? (vote from the list above)
2. What’s the smallest change that would make next sprint better?
3. Did we complete the action items from last retro? (yes / partly / no)
4. Who will own this action, and by when?
5. How confident are you that this retro will change anything? (1–5)

How to run a retrospective that isn’t the same five comments

• Collect answers before discussing them. Everyone answers at the same time, then you look at the full picture together.
• Make it anonymous so the “what didn’t go well” answers include the uncomfortable ones (what anonymity should mean).
• Vote on what to fix. Pick one or two issues; a retro with ten action items usually ships none.
• Rotate the questions. Same questions every sprint means the same answers every sprint.
• Start the next retro with last retro’s actions. It’s the fastest way to show the meeting matters.

Need a warm-up first? Try the icebreaker questions. For how teams run retros and all-hands with live polls, see live polls for team meetings or TapInFlow for teams.