The best sprint retro format — and how to pick the right one for your team.
Short answer
Start/Stop/Continue is the best all-around sprint retro format: three clear columns, low facilitation overhead, and immediate actionability. 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For) works better for teams that need richer retrospection. Mad/Sad/Glad adds emotional vocabulary useful after a hard sprint. The best format is the one your team will be honest in.
No single retro format works for all teams and all situations. Here's how to choose.
Start/Stop/Continue. The default for most Agile teams. Three columns: Start (things we should begin doing), Stop (things we should stop doing), Continue (things that are working). Clear categories, fast to fill out, easy to generate action items from. Works for new teams because the structure is self-explanatory and the output maps directly to behavior change. Limitation: it can become rote — teams fill in the same columns every sprint with minimal reflection.
4Ls — Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed For. Adds depth to the standard format. "Liked" captures genuine positives. "Learned" surfaces new knowledge (team or technical). "Lacked" covers missing resources, information, or support — not just bad practices. "Longed For" reveals aspirational improvements. 4Ls is better than Start/Stop/Continue for teams in a learning-heavy sprint or post-launch, where reflection on knowledge is as important as behavior change.
Mad/Sad/Glad. Three emotional states replace activity-based columns. This format is deliberately uncomfortable for some teams — that discomfort is the point. Engineers who reflexively understate frustration often write very different things in "Mad" than they'd say out loud. Works well after a difficult sprint or when trust is high enough that emotional honesty is possible. Requires a more skilled facilitator.
DAKI — Drop, Add, Keep, Improve. Similar to Start/Stop/Continue but with two improvement categories (Drop vs. Add / Keep vs. Improve). More nuanced than SSC for engineering-heavy teams. "Improve" acknowledges that something is working but could be better — a category SSC doesn't have. "Drop" is more decisive than "Stop," which some teams find softens accountability.
Sailboat / Speedboat. Visual metaphor: wind (what's pushing us forward), anchors (what's slowing us down), rocks (risks ahead), island (the goal). Good for teams that respond better to visual metaphors than column headers. Less useful for teams that need direct action items — the metaphor adds a translation step.
How to rotate formats. Vary formats every 3–4 sprints. Rotating keeps reflection from becoming rote while maintaining enough consistency for comparison. Keep a backlog of 3–4 formats and let the team pick at the start of each retro based on what the sprint felt like.
After the retro, snap the whiteboard with BoardSnap. The AI reads the format columns, sticky note content, and vote dots, and produces a clean summary with the top action items — regardless of which format you used.
Frequently asked
Can you mix retro formats in a single session?
Yes. A common combination: open with Mad/Sad/Glad for the emotional check-in, then switch to DAKI for the action-item generation. The emotional opening surfaces what matters most; the DAKI format turns it into specific behavior changes.
What format works best for remote retrospectives?
Start/Stop/Continue or DAKI — both work well in digital tools like FigJam or Miro where you can pre-build the columns and have participants add digital stickies. Mad/Sad/Glad also works remotely but requires a higher-trust team, since emotional honesty is harder over video.
How often should you change the retro format?
Every 3–4 sprints is a reasonable rotation. Consistent format makes it easy to compare across sprints; too much consistency makes it rote. Let the team vote on the format at the start of each retro — the act of choosing increases engagement.
See it work in ten seconds.
BoardSnap is free on the App Store. Snap a board — get a summary and action plan.