9 Meeting Templates for Retrospectives and Reflection

View a collection of different frameworks and meeting agenda templates to help make your next retro delightful!

Retrospective meetings are a great opportunity for a team to learn and grow. By reflecting back on a specific project or time period, the team can focus on what went well and what can be improved for next time.

To get the most out of retrospective meetings, try using a meeting template or framework. This way it’s less overwhelming knowing where to start and everyone involved will have an idea of what to contribute in advance.

Since different teams prefer different frameworks, we’ve compiled 6 templates for reflection and retrospectives

1. What? So What? Now What?
2. Blue Ocean 4 Actions
3. Mad Sad Glad
4. 4Ls Retro
5. Project Retro
6. Design Retro
7. OKR Review
8. Bi-weekly Leadership Retro
9. Sprint Retro

⭐️ Fun fact: We built a meeting notes app where you can create and customize your own retrospective templates!

What? So What? Now What?

The What? So What? Now What? reflection template encourages critical thinking and reflection about a recent project or experience.

• What?: Describe what happened. What did you pick up on? What aspects jumped out to you?
• So What?: Consider the facts and implications and determine the ramifications of what happened. Make sense of what you’ve learned. What impact did they have on your team?
• Now What?: Establish a plan of action. What’s the limit? What activities are reasonable?

Blue Ocean 4 Actions

Originally developed by Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne, the Blue Ocean 4 Actions Framework is designed to challenge an “industry’s strategic logic” and create a new strategic profile.

• Eliminate: Which factors that the industry takes for granted should be eliminated?
• Reduce: Which factors should be reduced well below the industry standard?
• Raise: Which factors should be raised well above the industry standard?
• Create: Which factors that the industry has never offered should be created?

Mad Sad Glad

The Mad Sad Glad retrospective framework focuses the discussion around the emotional journey of your team. This can highlight ways to boost team morale and job satisfaction.

Before the meeting, ask each participant to come up with one answer per category. This can be via sticky note or in a collaborative note taking tool like Fellow.

• 😡 Mad: Problems, time wasters, unwanted surprises, etc.
• 😔 Sad: Issues between team members, things that didn’t go well, etc.
• 😃 Glad: Successes, things achieved, anything that puts a smile on their face
• Discuss: Ask your team members to discuss what they wrote and why they feel that way

4Ls Retro

The 4Ls Retro template facilitates a fact-based conversation about things the team loved, loathed, learned and longed for during a project or sprint.

• Loved: Describe what you loved about your work over this sprint. What do you want to keep doing, or do more of, in the future?
• Longed for: Write down a list of things that you wish that you’d had. It could be more people, more time, more coffee.
• Loathed: List challenges you faced during this sprint. What do you hope will never happen again?
• Learned: What did you learn during this sprint of work? What learnings can you share with the rest of the team and bring with you to future projects.

Project Retro

After a project ends, use this project retrospective meeting template to reflect on the learnings, challenges, and outcomes of the completed project.

• Quick overview: Project timeline, budget used, and major events.
• Learnings: Share what you learned during the project
• Things that worked: What should we continue doing / do again for future projects?
• Opportunities: What is the one thing that could be done differently next time?
• Action Items: What came out of this meeting? What are your next steps?

Design Retro

At the end of the week, use this design retrospective template to check-in with your design team and share accomplishments, roadblocks, and opportunities.

• Team Accomplishments: What updates from this week do you want to share with the team?
• Roadblocks: What roadblocks did you run into this week?
• Solutions: How will we solve these roadblocks?
• Improvements: How can we improve as a team and/or process?
• Opportunities: What future opportunities are you excited about?

OKR Review

• 🚀Goal performance — Review our progress on key results.
• ⛔️Blockers — List any blockers you have run into.
• ⭐️Learnings — List any learnings from this process.
• ✅Next Steps — What do we need to accomplish next? What are the next steps?

Bi-weekly Leadership Retro

• What’s going well? 😊 — Discuss what’s been moving smoothly so far.
• What isn’t? 👎 — Discuss what hasn’t been moving so smoothly.
• Improvements ✔️ — Discuss amongst your team members any improvements that have been noticeable, as well as any improvements you plan on making.

Sprint Retro

• 🚥 The mood-o-meter — Take the temperature in the room by asking each person to share how they’re feeling after the sprint.
• 🚀 What went well — Each team member member writes down what they think went well. Then, discuss those wins as a team.
• 🤔 What didn’t go well — Following the same format, each team member shares anything that didn’t go as planned.
• 💡 Any ideas? — Once any down-falls have been identified, the team is invited to brainstorm ideas that can be taken to improve problem areas.
• 🙏 Thanks — Share moments of gratitude and shoutouts for individual team members.
• ✅ Action items — What came out of this meeting? What are your next steps?

Looking for more meeting agenda templates?

Check out these other articles:

• 11 Meeting Templates for Every Stage of a Project
• 10 Meeting Templates for Sales Teams
• 10 Meeting Templates for Marketing Teams

Or view the entire Fellow meeting template library on our website👇