🎿❄️ Alpine Sprint
Strap on your boots and glide through our sprint—share the fresh powder (new ideas), avoid icy patches (stops), and keep carving the perfect runs (continue).
Template Columns
🚀 Lift Off
Identify fresh practices to kick off our sprint, like gearing up for a new run.
Base column: Start🛑 Powder Crash
Highlight habits that cause us to tumble and need to be avoided.
Base column: Stop🏂 Keep Carving
Celebrate techniques that keep us gliding smoothly and maintain momentum.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
A fast‑paced sprint retrospective using ski metaphors to surface new ideas, stop problematic habits, and reinforce what works.
When to use this template
Ideal after a short sprint when the team wants an energizing, visual review that quickly highlights improvements and successes.
How to facilitate
Explain the Alpine Sprint metaphor, open a digital board with the three columns and ensure everyone can add virtual sticky notes
Lift Off: ask each participant to write up to three fresh practices or ideas they want to start and place them in the Lift Off column, then have a brief round of sharing
Powder Crash: collect habits or blockers that caused slips, limit discussion to the most impactful items, and capture them in the Powder Crash column
Keep Carving: gather techniques that kept momentum, celebrate successes, and add them to the Keep Carving column
Vote on the top two items in each column, turn Lift Off and Powder Crash items into concrete action items with owners, and close the session
Pro Tips
Use anonymous sticky notes for the Powder Crash column to encourage honest feedback
Timebox each column discussion to 5‑7 minutes to keep energy high
Limit each participant to three items per column to avoid overload
Translate the highest‑voted ideas into SMART actions before ending the retro
FAQ
How many items should we aim for in each column?
Aim for 5‑8 items total per column; this provides enough material for discussion without overwhelming the team.
What if a few voices dominate the conversation?
Encourage quieter members to add their thoughts via chat or sticky notes first, then call on them specifically during the sharing round.
My team is new to the ski metaphor—will it be confusing?
Spend a minute at the start clarifying each column’s meaning with simple analogies; the visual icons help reinforce understanding.
How do we turn ideas into actionable steps?
After voting, assign a clear owner and a deadline to each top Lift Off and Powder Crash item, and record them in your sprint backlog as tasks.
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At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
4-12 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
Start, Stop, Continue
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective