🎃👻 Spooky Sprint Spectacle

Gather your ghouls and goblins to haunt the sprint—celebrate the treats, confront the tricks, and brew a potion for future success!
45–60 min
4-12 people
Based on: Glad, Sad, Mad
🎃👻 Spooky Sprint Spectacle

Template Columns

🍬 Sweet Successes

Share the treats—wins and delights from the sprint.

Base column: Glad
🕸️ Haunted Hurdles

Reveal the scares—issues and setbacks that haunted us.

Base column: Sad
🔥 Fiery Frights

Vent the curses—frustrations and angry moments that burned us.

Base column: Mad

About this template

A Halloween‑themed sprint retrospective that lets teams celebrate wins, surface obstacles, and release frustrations to create actionable improvements.

When to use this template

Use when you want to inject fun into a sprint review while still gathering honest feedback on successes, blockers, and frustrations.

How to facilitate

1

Set a spooky background and briefly explain the three columns: Sweet Successes, Haunted Hurdles, and Fiery Frights.

2

Ask participants to silently add sticky notes to the Sweet Successes column for each win they experienced during the sprint.

3

Group similar successes, discuss the highlights, and capture any emerging themes.

4

Move to Haunted Hurdles, have everyone write down setbacks, then discuss root causes and possible mitigations.

5

Proceed to Fiery Frights, allow team members to vent frustrations, and identify patterns that need attention.

6

Vote on the top items from each column to prioritize what the team will address next.

7

Create concrete action items for the upcoming sprint, assign owners, and close the session with a quick recap.

Pro Tips

Use themed emojis on the board to keep energy high without derailing focus

Limit each sticky note to one concise sentence to keep discussions focused

Allow anonymous entries for Fiery Frights to surface true frustrations

Set a timer for each column discussion to stay on schedule

FAQ

What if the team is hesitant to share frustrations?

Assure anonymity for Fiery Frights, use a quick poll for voting, and model openness by sharing your own challenges.

How do we keep the Halloween theme from becoming a distraction?

Limit decorations to background images and emojis, and allocate a strict timebox for each activity.

Can this format work for larger teams?

Yes, split into smaller groups for each column discussion and then bring back the top items for whole‑team voting.

Want a custom template?

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At a glance

  • Duration

    45–60 min

  • Team Size

    4-12 people

  • Columns

    3 columns

  • Base Format

    Glad, Sad, Mad

Tags

team health
fun
action-oriented
remote-friendly
themed

Ready to get started?

Use this template to run your next retrospective