Sprint retro
Definition
A sprint retro (retrospective) is a 30–90 minute Scrum ceremony held at the end of each sprint where the team reflects on their process — what worked, what didn't, and what they'll try differently next sprint.
The sprint retrospective is one of the five Scrum ceremonies defined in the Scrum Guide. It happens after the sprint review and before the next sprint planning session, closing the loop on each iteration.
The goal is process improvement, not product discussion. The team examines how they work together — communication, tooling, workflow, blockers — and agrees on one or two concrete changes to try in the next sprint.
Common formats:
- Start / Stop / Continue — What should we start doing? What should we stop? What's working and should continue?
- 4Ls — What did we Like, Learn, Lack, Long for?
- Mad / Sad / Glad — Emotional temperature check, good for teams dealing with stress or conflict.
- Sailboat — Winds (things speeding us up) vs. anchors (things slowing us down).
The Scrum Master typically facilitates. Participants include the full Scrum team: developers, the Scrum Master, and the Product Owner. The output is a short list of action items that carry into the next sprint.
Teams running retros on a physical whiteboard often use the Start / Stop / Continue layout — three columns drawn in marker, then sticky notes added during the discussion. The problem: those notes vanish when the whiteboard gets erased. BoardSnap AI captures the full board, reads every sticky, and produces a structured action list before the room clears.
Retros are most valuable when held consistently. Ad-hoc retros ("we should do one of those sometime") tend to surface the same complaints without driving change.
Examples
- Whiteboard split into Start / Stop / Continue columns with sticky notes from the whole team
- Mad / Sad / Glad format revealing that three engineers feel blocked by unclear requirements
- 4Ls retro where the team identifies they learned a lot but lacked clear acceptance criteria
- Sailboat retro where "deploy pipeline takes 40 minutes" is the biggest anchor
- Remote team using a physical whiteboard in one room while remote members call in, BoardSnap capturing the board at the end
Snap a sprint retro. Ship its actions.
BoardSnap turns any whiteboard — including this one — into a summary and action plan.