Use this when running or preparing to facilitate a retrospective for a client team.
How it works
- You provide the team name, sprint or period, any raw retro input (feedback, sticky notes, survey data), and optionally a preferred format
- The skill selects the best retro format for the team's maturity, synthesizes input into themes, and builds a facilitation script
- It returns a complete facilitation prep doc with discussion script, themed analysis, and prioritized action items
Prompt
You are preparing retrospective facilitation materials for Kate Makrigiannis's team-offsites-workshops engagement. Kate coaches product teams who often have never run effective retrospectives. Your job is to give her a facilitation script she can walk into the room with. Before writing, read knowledge/voice-tone-guide.md -- use the internal voice.
Inputs I will provide:
- Team: {{TEAM}} (the team running the retro)
- Sprint or period: {{SPRINT_OR_PERIOD}} (e.g., "Sprint 14", "Q2 2026", "past 6 weeks")
- Retro input (optional): {{RETRO_INPUT}} (raw feedback -- sticky notes, survey responses, Slack threads, previous retro notes)
- Format (optional): {{FORMAT}} (preferred retro format, or leave blank for a recommendation)
Step 1: Select the retro format
Reference knowledge/pm-execution-templates.md for the three retro formats. If the user specified a format, use it. If not, recommend one based on these guidelines:
Start/Stop/Continue -- Best for:
- Teams new to retros (lowest cognitive load)
- Teams that need simple, actionable takeaways
- When Kate doesn't know the team well yet
- Default choice when in doubt
4Ls (Liked/Learned/Lacked/Longed For) -- Best for:
- Teams with some retro experience who are ready for deeper reflection
- Periods with significant learning or change (new tools, new process, team restructuring)
- When Kate wants to surface emotional signals alongside tactical ones
Sailboat (Wind/Anchor/Rocks/Island) -- Best for:
- Mature teams comfortable with metaphorical thinking
- Strategic retros (end of quarter, end of project, milestone reviews)
- When the team needs to zoom out from sprint-level details
- When Kate wants to connect tactical issues to strategic direction
State your recommendation and reasoning so Kate can override if she knows the team better.
Step 2: Synthesize retro input (if provided) If raw feedback was provided:
- Group similar items into 3-5 themes
- Identify the most frequently mentioned topics
- Note sentiment patterns (frustration, energy, confusion, pride)
- Pull representative quotes that capture each theme
- Flag any items that are about individuals rather than process (Kate should handle these privately, not in the group retro)
If no raw input was provided, build the facilitation script with placeholder prompts Kate can use to elicit feedback live.
Step 3: Build the facilitation script
Facilitation Script
Opening (5 min)
Optional warm-up (2-3 min): Before diving into the retro format, consider a brief opener to shift the room's energy:
- One-Word Check-In: Each person shares one word for how they're arriving. No explanation. Surfaces real energy and gives quiet voices an early win.
- Rose/Thorn (standing): Everyone stands. Share one thing that went well (rose) and one that was hard (thorn). The standing format raises energy and signals this is active, not passive.
- Count to 20: The group counts to 20, one person per number, no system. If two people speak at once, restart from 1. Requires listening and yielding -- exactly what a good retro needs.
Related skills: See
/workshop-warm-upfor the full warm-up library.
- Set the tone: "We're here to improve how we work, not to assign blame"
- Ground rules (one speaker at a time, assume good intent, focus on process not people)
- Quick context: what happened this sprint/period (key milestones, challenges, wins)
- If this team has never done a good retro, add Kate's framing: "A retro isn't a status meeting. We're not reporting what happened -- we're deciding what to change."
Gathering Input (15 min)
[Format-specific prompts and questions for each category]
- Suggested time per category
- Facilitation tips for getting quiet team members to contribute
- How to handle dominant voices without shutting them down
Theming & Discussion (15 min)
[If input was provided, present the themed analysis] [If not, instructions for live clustering]
- Discussion questions for each theme
- How to move from symptoms to root causes
- When to go deeper vs. when to move on
Action Items (10 min)
- Limit to 2-3 items maximum (more won't get done)
- Each action item must have: specific action, owner, deadline, success metric
- Review previous retro actions if available (were they completed?)
Closing (5 min)
- Quick round: one word for how this retro felt
- Confirm action items and owners
- Set the next retro date
Themed Analysis
[If retro input was provided]
| Theme | Category | Frequency | Sentiment | Key Quotes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| [theme] | [format category] | [how often mentioned] | [frustrated/neutral/positive] | [representative quote] |
Suggested Action Items
| Priority | Action Item | Owner | Deadline | Success Metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | [specific, actionable improvement] | [role] | [date] | [how we'll know it worked] |
| 2 | [specific, actionable improvement] | [role] | [date] | [how we'll know it worked] |
Kate's Facilitator Notes
- Things to watch for with this specific team
- Sensitive topics to handle carefully
- Carry-over items from previous retros (if known)
- Suggested follow-up cadence for action items
For post-engagement retrospectives (Kate's own review of an engagement), use the engagement-retro skill. This skill is for facilitating client team retros.
Example Output
Input
- Team: Meridian Health — Digital Products squad (8 people, mix of eng, design, and product; team lead is Priya Nair)
- Sprint or period: Sprint 22 (two-week sprint ending May 9)
- Retro input: Sticky notes from Miro board — "Standup has turned into a status report, no one's actually blocking" / "Finally shipped the appointment reminders feature — felt good" / "QA keeps getting squeezed at the end" / "I never know when designs are actually final vs. still being iterated" / "Priya is great at running interference with stakeholders" / "Unclear who owns the acceptance criteria — devs and design keep disagreeing" / "We moved fast this sprint but I feel like we cut corners on accessibility" / "Love that we did a quick design crit mid-sprint, more of that" / "The Jira board was out of date all week, no one could tell what was actually done" / "Wish we'd caught the API change earlier, cost us two days"
- Format: (blank — use recommendation)
Output
Retro Facilitation Prep
Team: Meridian Health Digital Products · Sprint 22 · Facilitator: Kate Makrigiannis
Format Recommendation: Start / Stop / Continue
Recommended. Here's the reasoning.
The sticky notes show a team that's functionally solid but has several unresolved process friction points — unclear ownership, QA timing, and a standup that's drifted. Start/Stop/Continue is the right frame here: it's low cognitive overhead, it maps directly onto the actionable issues already surfacing in the input, and it keeps the group in "what do we actually change" mode rather than abstract reflection.
If Priya tells you the team has run strong retros before and is hungry for something deeper, 4Ls would also work — the accessibility comment and the API miss both carry emotional weight worth exploring. But default to Start/Stop/Continue unless she says otherwise.
Themed Analysis
| Theme | Category | Frequency | Sentiment | Key Quotes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ownership gaps (AC, design finality) | Stop / Start | 3 mentions | Frustrated | "I never know when designs are actually final" / "Who owns the acceptance criteria?" |
| QA and quality being deprioritized | Stop | 2 mentions | Worried | "QA keeps getting squeezed at the end" / "We cut corners on accessibility" |
| Standup has lost its purpose | Stop | 1 mention (strong signal) | Flat | "Standup has turned into a status report, no one's actually blocking" |
| Board hygiene and visibility | Stop | 1 mention | Frustrated | "Jira board was out of date all week" |
| Things worth amplifying | Continue | 2 mentions | Positive / energized | "Finally shipped appointment reminders — felt good" / "Love the mid-sprint design crit" |
⚑ Flag for Kate — handle privately: "Priya is great at running interference with stakeholders" — this is praise directed at an individual, not a process observation. It's warm and worth Priya knowing, but surfacing it in the group retro shifts the dynamic. Pass it along to Priya 1:1 before or after the session.
Facilitation Script
Opening — 5 min
Warm-up (2 min): One-Word Check-In Go around the room (or Zoom boxes). One word for how you're arriving. No explanation needed. Kate models first — keep it honest, not performative.
Why this one: The team just shipped something real (appointment reminders). There's likely a mix of satisfaction and residual friction. The check-in surfaces that range before the retro format asks anyone to commit to a lane.
Kate's framing:
"A retro isn't a debrief on what happened — we all lived Sprint 22. This is about deciding what we want to be different by Sprint 24. We're looking at process, not people. If something lands close to a person's name, let's redirect it to the system around them."
Ground rules (put on screen):
- One speaker at a time
- Assume good intent
- Focus on process, not individuals
- What's said here stays here — action items go to the board, not Slack gossip
Gathering Input — 15 min
(Stickies are already in from Miro — use this time to read silently, add anything missing, then move to clustering. If anyone hasn't added input yet, give 3 quiet minutes now.)
Start (things we should begin doing)
"What's something we're not doing that would have made this sprint meaningfully better?"
Prompt for quieter voices: "Anyone working in a different part of the stack see something the rest of us might have missed?"
Stop (things we should stop doing)
"What's a habit, practice, or pattern that's costing us more than it's giving us?"
Facilitation tip: If dominant voices rush to solutions here, slow them down — "Hold the fix for a second. Does anyone else recognize this pattern?"
Continue (things worth protecting)
"What went well enough that we'd be worse off if we dropped it?"
This is fast — the team already named two things (feature ship, design crit). Validate and move.
Theming & Discussion — 15 min
Cluster the stickies live into the five themes above (pre-loaded in Miro or on a whiteboard). Read each theme aloud and ask:
Theme 1: Ownership gaps
"We've got three notes that all point at the same thing — nobody's sure who has final say on acceptance criteria and when designs are locked. What does that cost us in a typical sprint?"
Move toward root cause: "Is this a communication problem, a process problem, or a resourcing problem? What would need to be true for this to not come up in Sprint 24?"
Theme 2: QA and quality squeeze
"Two separate notes mentioned quality getting cut — one on QA timing, one on accessibility. Are those the same problem or two different ones?"
Watch for: this conversation can tip into blame toward eng or PM for scope decisions. Redirect to when quality enters the sprint, not who deprioritized it.
Theme 3: Standup drift
"One note says standups feel like status reports. If that's true — what are we losing? What would a standup look like that actually unblocks people?"
Keep this tight — it's easy to spend 10 minutes redesigning standup in the retro. The goal is to name the problem and assign someone to propose a new format offline.
Theme 4: Jira board visibility
"If the board was out of date all week, what does that mean for how we made decisions? Is this a habit issue or a tooling issue?"
This one is fast. It usually resolves to one owner and one clear action.
Action Items — 10 min
Kate's rule for this team: No more than 3 items. Every item needs an owner (a name, not a role), a deadline, and a way to know it worked.
Before setting new ones: "Did we close the actions from Sprint 21's retro? Let's spend 60 seconds on that before we add to the list."
Closing — 5 min
- Quick round: one word for how this retro felt (different from how you arrived?)
- Read the three action items aloud — confirm owners are nodding, not just silent
- "Next retro is end of Sprint 23 — two weeks. I'll send a Miro link 24 hours before for async input."
Suggested Action Items
| Priority | Action Item | Owner | Deadline | Success Metric |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Define and document the AC ownership handoff — who writes it, who signs off, when it's locked | Priya (PM) + Design Lead | Before Sprint 23 planning | Zero "who owns this?" moments in Sprint 23 standup |
| 2 | Move QA into the sprint earlier — agree on a definition of "dev complete" that includes accessibility review | Eng Lead | Sprint 23 kickoff | QA starts by day 7 of sprint, not day 9 |
| 3 | Redesign standup format — one person proposes a new structure focused on blockers only | Team lead rotation |