🔍🖍️ Blue’s Clues Retrospective
Paw prints everywhere! Join Blue and friends as we solve the mystery of our team’s sprint. Let’s uncover clues about what to start, stop, and continue to make our next adventure even better!
Template Columns
🧩 New Clues to Try
Share fresh ideas and approaches we should start exploring, just like finding our first clue.
Base column: Start🚫 Paw Prints to Wipe Away
Identify habits and practices that aren’t helping, so we can clean away those paw prints.
Base column: Stop🐾 Clues to Keep Following
Highlight what’s working well, ensuring we keep following these successful clues for future sprints.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
The Blue’s Clues retrospective uses a playful mystery theme to encourage teams to reflect on what to start, stop, and continue doing—uncovering team insights for continuous improvement.
When to use this template
Use this format when you want to add some creativity to a standard start-stop-continue retro, especially with teams that enjoy a lighter tone or need to boost engagement.
How to facilitate
Welcome the team and introduce the Blue's Clues theme, explaining the focus on discovery and improvement.
Share the column prompts and encourage everyone to reflect individually on new ideas to try, practices to stop, and approaches to continue.
Give participants time to add their thoughts in each column, either anonymously or named, as comfortable.
Invite everyone to read through the contributions and suggest grouping similar notes into clusters for discussion.
Facilitate a discussion starting with new ideas to try, then habits to stop, and finally what to continue, encouraging examples and actionable insights.
Help the team prioritize key actions and assign clear owners and due dates for next steps.
Close by celebrating team wins and highlighting the progress made together, using the playful theme for a positive wrap-up.
Pro Tips
Lean into the playful theme with fun visuals or sound cues to make the session memorable and boost engagement.
Encourage quieter team members by inviting their insights in the chat or private notes, then bringing them into the conversation.
Keep discussions focused by timeboxing each column and using clear follow-up questions to dig deeper.
Reflect on action item ownership in each retro to build accountability over time.
FAQ
What if the team struggles to contribute new ideas?
Prompt with specific questions, like ‘What have we seen in other teams or sprints that worked well?’ or share your own example to get things started.
How do we make sure action items actually happen?
Assign each action a clear owner and deadline, and review progress at the start of the next retrospective.
Is this format suitable for serious topics?
Yes—the playful theme can help teams approach tough topics in a less intimidating way. Just remind everyone that all feedback is valuable, regardless of the retro’s style.
At a glance
- Duration
30–45 min
- Team Size
3-10 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
Start, Stop, Continue
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective