🧚♂️📖 Fairy Tale Adventure
Step into an enchanted storybook! Reflect on our team's journey like fairy tale heroes: uncover magic to start, banish curses to stop, and keep our enchanted strengths alive. Let’s craft a happily-ever-after for our next sprint!
Template Columns
🪄 Spellbinding Beginnings
Suggest new magical practices or ideas we should start to enhance our journey.
Base column: Start🧹 Banished Curses
Identify unhelpful habits or obstacles we should cast away for good.
Base column: Stop🌟 Legendary Charms
Share the enchanted actions and rituals we should keep to ensure our fairy tale success continues.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
The Fairy Tale Adventure retrospective transforms your team’s review into a storybook quest, using playful language to inspire creative thinking about what to start, stop, and continue. It encourages engagement by framing challenges and wins as magical moments on an enchanted journey.
When to use this template
Use this format to refresh team energy, spark imaginative thinking, and make regular retrospectives more fun, especially when engagement is low or the team needs a morale boost.
How to facilitate
Set the scene by welcoming the team into the 'enchanted storybook' and explaining the metaphor for each column
Ask everyone to silently add notes to the three columns: Spellbinding Beginnings (what magical practices to start), Banished Curses (what to stop), and Legendary Charms (what to keep)
Group similar ideas together in each column and invite volunteers to read out their favorite notes, sharing a quick story behind each
Discuss each column as a group, focusing on creative solutions for Banished Curses and celebrating Legendary Charms
Vote on the most impactful Spellbinding Beginnings and Banished Curses to prioritize action items for the next sprint
Agree on specific owners for follow-up actions, then close by imagining your team’s next 'chapter' together
End with a light-hearted team moment, such as inventing the team's fairy tale title for the sprint
Pro Tips
Encourage storytelling to bring each 'spell' or 'curse' to life—relating issues and ideas to actual team experiences makes discussion more memorable
Lean into the theme with relevant backgrounds, playful language, or even a fantasy soundtrack to help everyone loosen up
Remind the team that every fairy tale has highs and lows; normalize both successes and setbacks to foster psychological safety
If someone’s struggling for ideas, ask them to imagine what a wise wizard or fairy godparent would advise your team
FAQ
How do I help my team embrace the fairy tale theme if some people feel it's too silly?
Frame the theme as a creative exercise to promote fresh thinking, but let anyone participate at their own comfort level—focus on the underlying reflection, not the theatrics.
How detailed should the suggestions in each column be?
Encourage concrete, actionable ideas rather than broad wishes. For example, suggest 'run a daily spell check sync-up' instead of 'improve communication.'
What if the discussion gets off track due to the playful theme?
Gently guide the team back with humor, linking their story elements directly to team improvement topics. The facilitator can refocus with prompts like 'What would our tale’s hero do next?'
At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
4-10 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
Start, Stop, Continue
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective