Mad / sad / glad retro
Definition
A retrospective format organized around three emotional states: Mad (things that frustrated the team), Sad (things that disappointed or worried the team), and Glad (things that made the team feel good).
Mad / sad / glad intentionally centers feelings over process. Where Start / stop / continue asks what to do, Mad / sad / glad asks how the team felt — and the emotional signal often surfaces problems that purely logical formats miss.
When to use it: After a stressful sprint, a difficult launch, or a period of organizational change. Teams that have been heads-down shipping often haven't had space to name what was hard. This format creates that space explicitly.
How it runs: The facilitator draws three columns — Mad, Sad, Glad — and the team writes one feeling or observation per sticky note. Everything goes up without discussion first. The facilitator groups cards and the team discusses the biggest clusters. Mad items usually produce the clearest improvement candidates; Glad items are worth naming explicitly so the team can protect what's working.
Common pitfalls: Mad items can veer into personal complaints if the psychological safety is low. Establish upfront that items should be about processes, systems, and situations — not people. A skilled facilitator redirects personal items to structural root causes.
Relationship to other formats: Mad / sad / glad is the emotional complement to the more tactical Start / stop / continue. Some teams run Mad / sad / glad quarterly and Start / stop / continue at the end of every sprint.
Snap the board with BoardSnap after the session. The AI reads each column and generates a structured summary with the emotional theme and the underlying process issues, so the retro output doesn't just live on a photo — it becomes a shareable document.
Examples
- Mad: last-minute scope changes with no discussion. Sad: the feature shipped but users aren't finding it. Glad: the cross-team collaboration on the API integration was genuinely smooth.
- A team uses mad / sad / glad after a difficult product launch to process both the wins and the frustrations before planning the next sprint.
- A manager runs mad / sad / glad quarterly as a team health check, separate from the tactical sprint retros.
- A remote team fills out mad / sad / glad async before the meeting, then spends the synchronous time on discussion rather than writing.
Snap a mad / sad / glad retro. Ship its actions.
BoardSnap turns any whiteboard — including this one — into a summary and action plan.