🏎️ Indy 500 Race Day
Rev your engines! In this Indy 500-inspired retro, our team gears up for endurance, speed, and strategic pit stops. Let’s tune up our teamwork and accelerate towards project success! Share your winning strategies and pit lane improvements.
Template Columns
🏁 Start Your Engines
Share what new actions or habits we should ignite to help our project race ahead.
Base column: Start⛔ Wave the Red Flag
Identify what we should halt or avoid to prevent crashes and breakdowns on our road to success.
Base column: Stop🔧 Smooth Pit Stops
Highlight what’s working well like a seamless pit stop that keeps our race on track—let’s keep these going!
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
The Indy 500 Race Day retrospective uses racing metaphors to help teams reflect on actions to start, stop, and continue in pursuit of high-performance and seamless collaboration.
When to use this template
Use this format when your team needs to focus on accelerating progress, improving processes, and tuning up teamwork for upcoming challenges or project milestones.
How to facilitate
Kick off the session by explaining the racing theme and how each column represents a key aspect of high-performing teams
Invite everyone to add insights to the Start Your Engines column about new actions or habits that could help the team move faster and further
Ask team members to identify behaviors, obstacles, or processes for the Wave the Red Flag column—things that may be slowing down or risking the team’s success
Encourage sharing of what’s running smoothly in the Smooth Pit Stops column, recognizing habits, routines, or interactions that are working well
Review all contributions together, discuss key themes, and vote to prioritize the most impactful actions
Brainstorm and agree on concrete next steps or experiments to address the top items in each category
Close with a brief team reflection on how these changes could help achieve your project’s 'checkered flag'—success
Pro Tips
Transform racing metaphors into concrete examples for your context to ensure insights are actionable
Encourage quieter team members to contribute by using anonymous input or chat features before discussion
Keep the energy high by occasionally referencing fun race-day language throughout the conversation
Review recent sprints or periods for inspiration before the session—specifics lead to more valuable ideas
FAQ
What if team members aren’t familiar with racing terminology?
Briefly explain the theme at the start, then connect racing terms to your everyday workflow so everyone feels comfortable.
How do we avoid getting stuck just repeating past retro points?
Invite the team to focus on specifics from recent work, or set a short challenge to find at least one new idea per column.
What should we do if some columns get no input?
Prompt with examples or rephrase the column’s purpose in your team’s natural language to spark contributions.
How can we ensure action items actually get followed up?
Assign clear owners and deadlines to each key takeaway and review progress at the start of your next retrospective.
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