What is the 4 L’s Retrospective template?
Conduct a retrospective session with your Agile team to reflect on what worked, what didn’t, and what needs improvement after your last sprint. The 4 L’s Retrospective template will help you highlight positive and negative aspects of the sprint without putting the blame on others. Each of your colleagues will be able to write down elements you can use later to improve your team collaboration.
The 4 L’s stand for what you’ve:
- Liked — What you’ve managed to do well during your last sprint.
- Learned — What your teammates were able to understand recently.
- Lacked — What seemed to be missing.
- Longed for — What you strive for.
What are the benefits of the 4 L’s Retrospective template?
Thanks to the 4 L’s Retrospective template, you can:
- Give people time and space to reflect on their successes and failures from the last sprint.
- Guarantee a respectful environment during the session so everyone can share their honest opinions and thoughts.
- Ensure anonymity to increase people’s comfort level and willingness to express their criticism during the exercise.
- Put a transparent barrier between objective feedback and a conversation where emotions take over, thus keeping the discussion productive.
- Bring dispersed Agile teams together to collaborate without constraints or harmed morale in the next sprint.
How to use the 4 L’s Retrospective template in a few steps?
- Open the 4 L’s Retrospective template on a new board or add it to an already existing one.
- Invite your Agile team to the whiteboard and set the tone and expectations of the retrospective session. Make sure the participants understand the purpose of this meeting.
- Set the timer to prevent the session from turning into a several-hour workshop. The meeting should be between thirty to sixty minutes long.
- Ask everyone to fill in sticky notes with comments on what they liked, lacked, learned, and longed for during the last sprint. You can do this part of the activity individually or together with your entire team.
- Start an open discussion once everyone is ready with writing down their opinions.
- Complete the process by turning the most agreed-upon items into Jira tickets or follow-ups and confirming everyone knows what is expected from them in the upcoming sprint.
