🧀 Swiss Cheese Adventure
Let's dive into the Swiss cheese of our project! Each hole tells a story of what's missing, while the cheese represents our strengths. Explore the flavors of success, uncover gaps, and craft a recipe for improvement. Together, we’ll bake a better slice.
Template Columns
🧀 Cheesy Delights
Celebrate the strengths and successes that brought flavor to our project.
Base column: What Went Well🕳️ Holes to Patch
Identify the gaps and challenges that left us with holes in our progress.
Base column: What Went Wrong🍴 Recipe Refinements
Brainstorm ways to fill the gaps and perfect our cheesy recipe moving forward.
Base column: What We Want to ImproveAbout this template
The Swiss Cheese Adventure retrospective uses a thematic approach to explore successes, challenges, and improvements in your project workflow.
When to use this template
This retrospective is suitable when you want to motivate your team by celebrating successes while constructively addressing challenges.
How to facilitate
Start by explaining the Swiss Cheese Adventure theme, highlighting the metaphor of cheese for strengths and holes for weaknesses.
Begin with the 'Cheesy Delights' column, where team members note successes and positive aspects of the project.
Move to the 'Holes to Patch' column, encouraging participants to share obstacles or issues encountered.
Finally, focus on the 'Recipe Refinements' column to collaboratively brainstorm specific actions to address the identified challenges and enhance future work.
Wrap up the session by reviewing the main points, discussing next steps, and expressing appreciation for the team’s input.
Pro Tips
Encourage creative thinking by contextualizing challenges and successes using the Swiss cheese metaphor.
Allocate equal discussion time to each column to maintain balance.
Engage quieter team members by explicitly inviting their input during the discussion.
FAQ
What do I do if the team struggles to think of positive highlights?
Guide them by reminiscing about specific phases or events in the project that turned out well.
How can I ensure actionable outcomes from the Recipe Refinements column?
Encourage the team to propose SMART actions and assign away distinct responsibilities.
At a glance
- Duration
45–60 minutes
- Team Size
4-12 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
What Went Well, What Went Wrong, What We Want to Improve
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective