🧁🥖 Baking Bash
Welcome to the Baking Bash! Let’s mix our ingredients (experiences), savor the sweet, fix the sour, and avoid burnt outcomes. Roll up your sleeves—time to knead our agile process into perfection!
Template Columns
🍰 Sweet Successes
Share the moments that rose to perfection during our sprint, just like a perfectly baked cake.
Base column: Glad🥄 Sour Notes
Reflect on situations that left a bitter aftertaste or didn’t quite turn out as planned.
Base column: Sad🔥 Burnt Bottoms
Highlight frustrations or mishaps that set off the smoke alarms this time.
Base column: MadAbout this template
The Baking Bash retrospective guides teams in celebrating successes, addressing disappointments, and airing out major issues using a fun baking metaphor.
When to use this template
Use this format after high-stakes sprints, product launches, or when you want to energize your team with creative reflection. It's ideal for teams looking for both honest feedback and morale boosting.
How to facilitate
Kick off by setting a collaborative, playful tone and explaining the baking analogy to ensure everyone is on board.
Invite each team member to recall experiences from the last sprint and add their thoughts to the three columns: Sweet Successes, Sour Notes, and Burnt Bottoms.
Allow time for everyone to read and react to submitted notes. Group similar items together to uncover themes.
Encourage discussion on Sweet Successes, giving space for celebration and recognizing team and individual wins.
Move to Sour Notes, prompting gentle exploration of disappointments and brainstorming ways to prevent recurrence.
Address Burnt Bottoms, focusing the conversation on larger frustrations. Help the team turn these insights into clear, actionable improvements.
Wrap up the session by agreeing on a shortlist of action items. Highlight one or two 'recipes for success' the team wants to bake into the next sprint.
Close with a quick team check-in: How did the new format feel? Any tweaks for next time?
Pro Tips
Lean into the baking metaphor—playing with puns or visuals can boost engagement and help feedback land softly.
For tough topics, ask 'What ingredients were missing?' or 'How can we adjust the recipe?' to steer constructive conversations.
Encourage quieter team members by calling on everyone to share at least one item per column.
Timebox each discussion area to keep momentum and avoid getting stuck on negatives.
Mix individual reflection and group discussion to balance psychological safety and deep insight.
FAQ
How do I keep the session light despite serious issues?
Acknowledge emotions, but use the playful baking language to reframe tough feedback and spark creative solutions.
What if the team skips over Burnt Bottoms?
Prompt gently by asking about any nagging frustrations or things that 'smelled off'—remind the team that honest airing helps avoid repeat mistakes.
How can I ensure action items are practical?
For each issue raised, ask the team to identify a small change or experiment they want to try in the next sprint.
At a glance
- Duration
35–50 min
- Team Size
4-10 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
Glad, Sad, Mad
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective