Start stop continue retrospective template
Start, stop, continue is the simplest retrospective there is. Everyone answers 3 questions: what should we start doing, what should we stop doing, and what's working that we should continue? This board gives each answer a column, then adds the 2 a retrospective usually forgets: the actions you agreed, and whether they got done.
Free for 3 projects, forever. No credit card.
Write the sprint goal on the board
Pair on risky changes
Starting cards on the last day of the sprint
Short standups
Demoing to support
Ava: add a review checklist by Friday
Turn on WIP limits
The 5 columns
What each one is for. Rename, reorder or add columns whenever the work needs it.
- Start
- Things the team should begin doing. A new habit, a check, a meeting, a tool.
- Stop
- Things that waste time or cause problems. Be specific about the practice, never about a person.
- Continue
- What's working and should stay. Saying it out loud protects it when things get busy.
- Actions
- The 1 to 3 changes the team agreed, each with an owner and a date. This is the column that matters.
- Donecounts as done
- Actions that were carried out. Counts as done.
Questions to get people talking
When the board is quiet, ask one of these.
Start
- What did we wish we'd had this sprint?
- What has another team tried that we haven't?
- What would make next sprint easier?
Stop
- What did we do that nobody would miss?
- Where did we wait the longest?
- What surprised us late that we could have seen early?
Continue
- What went better than usual?
- What would we be sorry to lose?
- What did someone do that helped everyone?
How to run a start stop continue retrospective
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Step 1
Set the scope and the time
Say which period you're looking back on, usually the last sprint, and keep the meeting to 30 to 45 minutes.
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Step 2
Add cards quietly first
Give everyone 5 to 10 minutes to add cards to Start, Stop and Continue on their own. Writing before talking means the quiet people's ideas make it onto the board too.
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Step 3
Read and group
Go column by column. Read each card out, ask the person who wrote it to explain if needed, and drag duplicates together.
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Step 4
Agree 1 to 3 actions
Pick the changes that matter most and write each as a card in Actions, with an owner and a due date. More than 3 and none of them happen.
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Step 5
Check last time's actions first next time
Open the next retrospective by looking at Actions and Done. If the actions from last time didn't happen, that's the first thing to talk about.
With your AI agents
An agent can open the retrospective with facts: what finished, what slipped, and which cards waited longest, read from the sprint board. Afterwards it can add the agreed actions as cards with owners and dates.
Agents connect over MCP or the REST API, on every plan, and act as you.
agentcreate_project("Sprint 14 retro", template: "retrospective")
agentget_board("Sprint 14")
agentcreate_card("Sprint 14 retro", "Add a review checklist", column: "Actions")
Keep it working
- Keep one retrospective board and archive the cards each time, so the history is searchable.
- Talk about practices, not people. "Reviews took 3 days" can be fixed. "Sam is slow" can't.
- Rotate who runs the retrospective, so it isn't always the same voice asking the questions.
- If Continue is always empty, ask for it first. Teams that only list problems stop wanting to come.
Questions
About this template
What is a start stop continue retrospective?
A retrospective format where the team lists what to start doing, what to stop doing and what to continue doing, then agrees a few actions. It's quick to explain and works for any team, not only software teams.
Is this retrospective template free?
Yes. It's on the Free plan: 3 projects with unlimited cards, forever. No credit card. Running it with your team on one board needs Pro.
Can people vote on cards?
There's no voting button. Teams usually add a +1 comment to the cards they want to discuss, or the facilitator picks the top items after grouping.
Can cards be anonymous?
No. Every card shows who added it. If people won't speak up with their name attached, collect ideas some other way first and have the facilitator add them.
Other templates
Start from this template
Free for 3 projects, with no credit card to enter. Every board exports as JSON or CSV whenever you want to leave.