🦃🍁 Gobble Gobble Gala
Gather around the Thanksgiving table to celebrate our sprint, sharing the dishes of success, the leftovers of challenges, and the recipes for future growth.
Template Columns
🚀🦃 Launch the Feast
Identify new initiatives to kick off our sprint, like fresh recipes for success.
Base column: Start✋🍗 Pause the Gobble
Highlight practices we should halt to avoid overcooking our workflow.
Base column: Stop🔄🥧 Keep the Harvest
Reinforce the habits that are yielding a bountiful sprint harvest.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
A Thanksgiving‑themed sprint retrospective that celebrates wins, discards stale practices, and reinforces productive habits.
When to use this template
Use when the team wants a festive, gratitude‑focused review that balances celebration with actionable improvement.
How to facilitate
Begin by welcoming the team, playing a short Thanksgiving tune, and inviting each member to share one thing they’re grateful for from the sprint.
Open the Launch the Feast column and ask participants to suggest new initiatives or ideas they want to start, writing each on a virtual sticky note.
Move to the Pause the Gobble column, prompting the group to identify practices that slowed them down or caused waste, and capture each as a stop item.
Then explore the Keep the Harvest column, having the team highlight habits or processes that delivered value and should be continued.
Facilitate a quick voting round using reactions or dot voting to prioritize the top two items from each column.
Conclude by turning the top items into concrete action items with owners and due dates, and close with a virtual toast.
Pro Tips
Encourage participants to use Thanksgiving-themed emojis on their sticky notes to keep the mood light and engaging.
Limit discussion time per item to two minutes to keep the session energetic.
If the team is large, break into smaller groups for each column and reconvene to share findings.
FAQ
What if the team runs out of ideas for new initiatives?
Prompt them by asking what opportunities they saw during the sprint or what customer feedback suggests, and remind them that even small experiments count.
How do we keep the celebration from turning into a venting session?
Set a clear timebox for each column and remind the group that the goal is constructive improvement, not blame.
Can this format work for a sprint that didn’t meet its goals?
Yes, the Thanksgiving framing focuses on gratitude and learning; use the Pause the Gobble column to surface blockers and the Keep the Harvest column to reinforce what still worked.
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At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
4-12 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
Start, Stop, Continue
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective