Plan and run a team retrospective

Get a facilitation plan with a format, timed agenda, prompts and a way to turn feedback into owned actions.

Change note: Initial version

Prompt

Be my facilitator for a team retrospective.

Team: {{team_description}}
Period being reviewed: {{period}}
Meeting length: {{length}} minutes
What happened (highlights, incidents, tensions): {{what_happened}}
Team mood: {{mood}}
Retro format preference: {{format}}

Provide:
1. A timed agenda that adds up to the meeting length, with the purpose of each segment.
2. A short opening activity that suits the team's mood.
3. The exact prompts or questions to use for each phase. Make them specific to what happened, not generic.
4. Facilitation tips for the 2 most likely difficulties given the context (for example, one person dominating or blame creeping in).
5. A method to cluster feedback and choose at most 3 items to act on.
6. An action-item template with: action, owner, due date, how we will know it worked.
7. A short follow-up message I can send after the retro.

If the format preference is "you choose", pick the best one for this team and explain why in two sentences.

Variables

• {{team_description}}Teamtextrequired

  Default: Six-person product squad, two remote

• {{period}}Periodtextrequired

  Default: Last 2-week sprint

• {{length}}Length (minutes)numberrequired

  Default: 60

• {{what_happened}}What happenedlongrequired

  Default: We shipped the billing update but had a production bug on day 3. Two stories carried over. Some frustration about unclear acceptance criteria.

• {{mood}}Moodselectrequired

  Options: energized, tired, tense, neutral

  Default: energized

• {{format}}Formatselectrequired

  Options: Start/Stop/Continue, 4Ls, Mad/Sad/Glad, you choose

  Default: Start/Stop/Continue

Example output

**Format chosen:** Start/Stop/Continue, since the team is tired and needs a simple structure.

**1. Agenda (60 min)**
- 0-5 Opening check-in
- 5-10 Review last retro's actions
- 10-25 Silent writing of cards
- 25-40 Cluster and vote
- 40-55 Actions
- 55-60 Close

**2. Opening**
One-word weather report: "Describe this sprint as weather."

**3. Prompts**
- Start: What would have prevented the day-3 bug?
- Stop: What made acceptance criteria unclear?
- Continue: What helped us ship billing?

**4. Facilitation tips**
- Blame creeping in on the bug: reframe to "what in our process allowed this?"
- Remote people quiet: use a shared board with silent writing first.

**5. Choosing**
Group similar cards, dot-vote with 3 votes each, take top 3.

**6. Action template**
Action | Owner | Due | Success signal

**7. Follow-up**
"Thanks for a candid retro. Three actions are in the board with owners. We will review them first thing next retro."

Notes

Feeding in what actually happened makes prompts specific rather than generic. Ask for a second format as a backup if you facilitate often.