🏴☠️⚓️ Pirate's Cove
Ahoy, crew! Chart our sprint's seas, celebrate buried treasure, drop dead weight, and set a course for smoother sailing ahead.
Template Columns
⚓️ Drop Anchor
Identify practices or items we should abandon to keep the ship steady.
Base column: Drop🏴☠️ Add Treasure
Propose new tools, ideas, or rituals to enrich our crew's journey.
Base column: Add🗺️ Keep the Map
Highlight the successful habits and processes we want to continue navigating with.
Base column: Keep🛠️ Improve the Ship
Suggest refinements to boost our crew's efficiency and morale.
Base column: ImproveAbout this template
A nautical-themed sprint retrospective that lets the crew drop unhelpful practices, add new ideas, keep winning habits, and improve the ship’s workflow.
When to use this template
Use when the team wants a fun, structured way to evaluate what to stop, start, continue, and refine, especially after a few sprints of steady work.
How to facilitate
Introduce the pirate metaphor and explain the purpose of each column on the virtual board
Ask each participant to write their thoughts on virtual sticky notes for Drop Anchor, Add Treasure, Keep the Map, and Improve the Ship
Group similar notes within each column and clarify any unclear items
Discuss the Drop Anchor column first, then move through Add Treasure, Keep the Map, and Improve the Ship, allowing brief input from everyone
Conduct dot voting to surface the top items in each column
Turn the highest‑voted items into concrete action items, assign owners, and set due dates
Pro Tips
Add emojis to the board headings to keep the theme lively and boost engagement
Limit each person to three notes per column to keep the conversation focused
Convert top‑voted Drop Anchor items into explicit ‘stop doing’ commitments and track them in the next sprint
FAQ
What if the team isn’t familiar with the pirate theme?
Give a brief, light‑hearted explanation of the metaphor and focus on the concrete purpose of each column rather than the jargon.
How do we handle a large number of sticky notes?
Group similar ideas together, then use dot voting to prioritize the most important items, saving less critical notes for a follow‑up.
What if some people dominate the discussion?
Use a round‑robin or timed sharing approach, or have the facilitator gently prompt quieter members to share their thoughts.
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At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
5-12 people
- Columns
4 columns
- Base Format
Drop, Add, Keep, Improve
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective