📅🗓️ Annual Review Rally
Gather around the calendar as we sprint through the year’s highlights, challenges, and future goals—aligning our agile compass for the next cycle.
Template Columns
🚀 Launch Pad (Start)
Identify fresh initiatives to kick off in the upcoming year.
Base column: Start🛑 Red Light (Stop)
Spot practices that hinder progress and should be halted.
Base column: Stop🔄 Green Light (Continue)
Highlight successful habits to keep powering our momentum.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
A year‑end retrospective that reviews achievements, obstacles, and sets priorities for the next cycle.
When to use this template
Use when the team is closing a fiscal or calendar year and needs to reflect on the whole period and plan ahead.
How to facilitate
Set the stage by reminding the group of the purpose: celebrate wins, surface blockers, and decide on actions for the coming year.
Create three virtual sticky‑note columns labeled Launch Pad (Start), Red Light (Stop), and Green Light (Continue) on the board.
Give each participant 5–7 minutes to silently add their ideas to the appropriate column, using brief statements.
Facilitate a round‑robin discussion, inviting owners to elaborate on each item, clustering similar ideas, and voting on the top three in each column.
Summarize the agreed‑upon starts, stops, and continues, assign owners and due dates, and capture them in the action tracker.
Pro Tips
Encourage participants to think in terms of outcomes, not just activities, to surface strategic initiatives.
Use a timer for silent brainstorming to keep energy high and prevent over‑analysis.
After voting, ask the team to articulate the measurable impact they expect from each chosen action.
FAQ
What if participants run out of ideas for a column?
Prompt them with guiding questions such as ‘What did we wish we had done?’ for Start, ‘What slowed us down?’ for Stop, and ‘What gave us the most value?’ for Continue.
How do we keep the discussion focused and avoid long debates?
Set a timebox for each column (e.g., 10 minutes) and use a ‘parking lot’ list for topics that need deeper follow‑up later.
Can we combine this with performance metrics?
Yes, bring key quarterly metrics to the board and ask the team to link each metric to items in the columns, which helps ground the conversation in data.
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At a glance
- Duration
90–120 min
- Team Size
5-20 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
Start, Stop, Continue
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective