🤠🐎 Wild West Roundup
Saddle up for a frontier retro! Ride through our successes, spot the tumbleweeds, and chart a trail toward a smoother sprint on the open range.
Template Columns
🤠💼 Trusted Saddles
Practices and tools we should keep riding with.
Base column: Keep🤠🔧 New Gear
Ideas and practices to add to our arsenal.
Base column: Add🤠⚖️ Lighten the Load
Things we should do less of to ride smoother.
Base column: Less🤠🚀 Full Gallop
Areas to amplify for greater momentum.
Base column: MoreAbout this template
A frontier‑themed retro that lets teams celebrate wins, prune waste, and accelerate progress using four clear columns.
When to use this template
Use when the team needs a fresh, energizing format to balance celebration with improvement, especially after a few sprints of steady work.
How to facilitate
Kick off by welcoming the team, sharing the Wild West theme, and explaining the four columns and their purpose.
Give participants 5 minutes to write individual ideas on virtual sticky notes for each column: Trusted Saddles, New Gear, Lighten the Load, Full Gallop.
Collect the notes on the board, then spend a few minutes clustering similar items within each column.
Facilitate a brief discussion per column, asking the group to surface insights and agree on the most impactful items.
Vote on the top two actions from Lighten the Load and Full Gallop, then assign owners and set clear next‑step deadlines.
Pro Tips
Start with a quick ice‑breaker like a cowboy hat emoji poll to boost engagement.
Limit each column discussion to 7 minutes to keep momentum and avoid analysis paralysis.
When voting, use a simple dot‑vote or emoji reaction to quickly surface priorities.
FAQ
What if the team runs out of ideas for a column?
Prompt with examples or ask each person to share at least one item; you can also borrow observations from the sprint review.
How do we handle dominant voices during discussion?
Use a round‑robin or timed speaking turns, and rely on the silent brainstorming phase to give everyone a voice.
Can we combine columns if we have a small team?
Yes, you can merge Lighten the Load and Full Gallop into a single 'Improve' column, but keep the spirit of identifying both reductions and amplifications.
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At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
4-12 people
- Columns
4 columns
- Base Format
Keep, Add, Less, More
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective