🎩💣 Mission Impossible
Agents, your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to debrief our latest sprint, uncover hidden victories, and defuse the blockers. Let’s zero in on improvements to ensure future missions are a dazzling success!
Template Columns
🕶️ Initiate New Protocols
Identify new strategies or practices we should launch to boost our mission’s success rate.
Base column: Start💣 Disarm the Obstacles
Reveal the tactics or habits that jeopardize our operation, and let’s eliminate them for good.
Base column: Stop🎥 Maintain Stealth Moves
Spotlight the techniques that ensure flawless execution and should remain part of every mission.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
Mission Impossible is a creative retrospective that encourages teams to uncover hidden wins, remove obstacles, and activate new strategies for future sprints.
When to use this template
Use this template when your team needs fresh energy, wants to expose unseen issues, or after a sprint with particular challenges. It’s especially effective when morale or engagement requires a boost.
How to facilitate
Set the stage by inviting everyone to embrace the secret agent theme and review the purpose of each column.
Ask team members to take 5–7 minutes to add thoughts to each column: new protocols to start, obstacles to disarm, and stealth moves to continue.
Review all input as a group—encourage more detail by asking clarifying questions and exploring hidden achievements and blockers.
Cluster similar ideas and have the team discuss them, focusing on uncovering insights and root causes.
Guide the team in voting for the most critical actions or changes needed for future missions.
Draft clear next steps and assign ownership for at least one improvement, obstacle removal, and maintained practice.
Close by celebrating small victories and reinforcing the secret agent spirit for the next sprint.
Pro Tips
Prompt the team with spy-themed questions to spark creativity and fun.
Use this format after a tough sprint to reframe learnings as valuable intelligence instead of failures.
Encourage quieter team members to share in smaller breakout groups before wider discussion.
Celebrate progress on obstacles previously defused to reinforce a sense of accomplishment.
FAQ
What if the team struggles to identify hidden victories?
Prompt with specific questions about challenges they overcame or things that worked smoother than before—even small wins count.
How do you keep the retrospective focused and on-topic?
Regularly tie back discussion points to the mission theme and column prompts. Set a timer for each section to maintain momentum.
What if action items from 'Disarm the Obstacles' keep recurring?
Dig deeper into the root causes with the team and agree on concrete next steps or process changes to address them.
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At a glance
- Duration
40–60 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