🕵️♂️💣 Mission: Agile Possible
Welcome, secret agents! Your mission: decode our team's successes, obstacles, and secret weapons. Let’s analyze what to launch, disable, and keep to accomplish future missions with flair!
Template Columns
🚦 Initiate New Protocols
Identify new tactics or tools we should start using on our next mission.
Base column: Start🛑 Abort Compromised Operations
Pinpoint actions, habits, or processes that jeopardize our mission and should be discontinued.
Base column: Stop🕶️ Maintain Agent Excellence
Highlight strategies and behaviors that are ensuring our missions are possible and should continue.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
Mission: Agile Possible is a fun, spy-themed retrospective that helps teams identify new opportunities, eliminate obstacles, and reinforce effective practices for future success.
When to use this template
Use this retrospective at the end of a sprint or project when seeking a creative way to analyze team performance, introduce improvements, and double down on what’s working.
How to facilitate
Set the scene by welcoming everyone as secret agents and introduce the mission: to review what to initiate, abort, and maintain for improved teamwork.
Review each column: explain that the team will brainstorm new protocols to start, compromised operations to stop, and agent excellence to continue.
Give team members a few minutes to individually add their ideas under each column, encouraging honesty and creativity.
Discuss each column in order, allowing team members to reveal their cards, share reasoning, and group similar ideas.
Vote collectively on the most impactful actions for each column, focusing on 1-2 items per area for actionable improvement.
Define clear next steps and assign owners for the top-voted actions, ensuring everyone understands what comes next in your ‘mission’.
Wrap up by debriefing as a team, discussing how the spy theme impacted engagement and what could be improved for next time.
Pro Tips
Lean into the spy theme—use playful language, code names, or background music to increase engagement without losing focus.
Balance fun with purpose by consistently connecting each point back to team goals and outcomes.
Encourage quieter team members to contribute by sending in ideas ahead of time if they’re uncomfortable sharing live.
FAQ
How do I keep the team focused and not sidetracked by the theme?
Clarify up front that the theme is meant to drive engagement, not distract from real issues. Prompt the group if conversation drifts too far from actionable feedback.
What if my team isn’t comfortable with playful themes?
Offer an opt-in for extra thematic elements and keep the facilitation professional. Focus on the columns’ intent if the team prefers a more straightforward approach.
How do I ensure actionable outcomes from this retro?
Prioritize a few high-impact actions per column, assign clear owners, and set deadlines so improvements are tracked and implemented.
At a glance
- Duration
35–50 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