✊🏿 Black Lives Matter Movement
Reflect on our journey towards justice and inclusion. Honor achievements, uncover challenges, and envision a path to meaningful change—just as allies build a better future together.
Template Columns
🌟 Empowered Voices
Celebrate moments where our actions uplifted and empowered diverse voices and brought positive change.
Base column: What Went Well🌑 Systemic Barriers
Identify obstacles and setbacks encountered while striving for equality and inclusion.
Base column: What Went Wrong✊ Growth for Justice
Share ideas for strengthening our commitment to justice, equity, and real progress moving forward.
Base column: What We Want to ImproveAbout this template
This retrospective template is designed to help teams reflect on their pursuit of justice, equity, and inclusion, inspired by the Black Lives Matter movement. Teams celebrate empowering achievements, examine systemic barriers, and generate actionable ideas for deepening their commitment to meaningful change.
When to use this template
Use this retrospective after initiatives focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or when your team wants to assess and strengthen its allyship and impact. It is especially valuable following challenging conversations or organizational change efforts related to social justice.
How to facilitate
Open with a moment to ground the group, clarify psychological safety, and restate the retrospective’s purpose: reflecting on the journey toward justice and inclusion.
Invite team members to contribute examples to Empowered Voices, celebrating actions that amplified diverse perspectives and fostered change. Encourage storytelling to honor these moments.
Guide the group to the Systemic Barriers column, asking everyone to openly surface obstacles, setbacks, or patterns that hampered progress toward equity. Prompt deeper exploration where needed.
Move to Growth for Justice, encouraging participants to propose ideas, commitments, or opportunities for next steps that will drive tangible progress.
Group and discuss related ideas in each column to identify dominant themes, triggers, and leverage points for advancing justice collectively.
Work as a group to select key actions or experiments for the next iteration and assign ownership where possible.
Close by reflecting on the emotional tone of the discussion and affirming the team’s shared commitment to justice.
Pro Tips
Prepare a set of prompts or guiding questions for each column to help participants reflect honestly and deeply.
Model vulnerability and openness as a facilitator to encourage meaningful sharing, especially for sensitive topics.
Remind everyone that this retrospective is about progress, not perfection—normalize open discussion of tough realities.
After the session, follow up with concrete actions in your team backlog to reinforce ongoing commitment.
FAQ
How do we handle emotionally charged or sensitive topics that may arise?
Frame the retrospective as a brave space, reaffirm ground rules about respect and confidentiality, and provide space to pause if emotions run high.
What if team members are hesitant to speak up in the Systemic Barriers section?
Allow for anonymous contributions, offer examples to break the ice, and emphasize that honest sharing is essential for progress.
How do we ensure that action items for justice and inclusion don't get lost after the retro?
Integrate them into your team’s backlog or action tracker, assign clear ownership, and revisit progress regularly in future retros.
At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
4-12 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
What Went Well, What Went Wrong, What We Want to Improve
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective