BoardSnap is an iOS app that reads 4Ls retrospective whiteboards and turns Liked / Learned / Lacked / Longed For notes into a structured sprint retrospective summary with prioritized improvement actions.
The 4Ls format is popular because it covers more ground than a simple went-well/didn't-go-well split. Liked captures wins. Learned captures insights. Lacked captures what was missing. Longed For captures aspirational changes.
Four categories means four times the sticky notes, four times the discussion, four times the whiteboard density. And if someone takes a photo at the end, you end up with an unreadable cluster of colored sticky notes that means nothing to anyone who wasn't in the room.
The 4Ls format deserves a better output format than a JPEG.
Liked / Learned / Lacked / Longed For. Label each quadrant clearly — these labels are how BoardSnap organizes the output.
Each person writes their notes on sticky notes or directly on the board. 5-7 minutes. No discussion yet.
Everyone places their notes in the correct quadrant. Similar notes get clustered together. Name the cluster if the pattern is clear — BoardSnap reads cluster names.
Discuss the clusters. Dot-vote to surface the highest-signal items in each quadrant. Votes are optional but useful context.
After discussion, snap the final board. BoardSnap reads all four quadrants, the clusters within them, and any vote counts or annotations.
BoardSnap returns a summary organized by quadrant, with clusters named, key themes highlighted, and Lacked/Longed For items converted to improvement action items.
A four-section retrospective document: Liked (wins and appreciation), Learned (insights and observations), Lacked (gaps and missing support), Longed For (aspirational changes). Items in Lacked and Longed For become tri-state action items. High-vote items are flagged for priority attention.
Twenty-six sticky notes across four quadrants after a product launch. BoardSnap organized them into twelve named clusters, generated six improvement action items from the Lacked column, and flagged three Longed For items as longer-term aspirations.
A hybrid session with some in-room participants and some joining remotely. The in-room board was the source of truth — BoardSnap captured it at the end and the summary was shared with the full remote team.
Start/Stop/Continue is action-oriented — it directly generates behavior changes. The 4Ls format is more reflective — it captures what happened before jumping to what to change. Many teams use 4Ls for richer retrospectives and Start/Stop/Continue when time is short. Both work great with BoardSnap.
BoardSnap AI reads partially obscured text. For dense boards, spread notes out before snapping — a few seconds of setup significantly improves the output quality.
Yes. The 4Ls format works for any periodic review: quarterly team retros, project close-outs, conference debrief sessions, annual planning reviews. The format is content-agnostic.
Often, yes. Longed For captures systemic desires that don't surface in shorter formats. Teams frequently identify their most important long-term improvements there. It's the quadrant most likely to be underdiscussed — and BoardSnap makes sure it's fully captured.
Snap the board, ship the action items in ten seconds.