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8 formats

Kickoff and Planning Retrospectives

Most retros look back. These look forward. Use them before a project starts, when a team forms or changes, or at the start of a quarter, to agree on a goal, name the risks and decide what matters most before the plan sets in.

How to choose

Each format answers a different kickoff question.

  • "What could go wrong?" The Pre-Mortem asks the team to imagine the project has already failed and explain why. Because the failure is imaginary, people raise risks they'd keep to themselves in a planning meeting.
  • "Where are we going, and what's in the way?" Sailboat puts the goal (the island) next to what pushes the team forward, what holds it back and the rocks ahead. It works at the start of a long project and again halfway through.
  • "What does success look like?" The Futurespective starts six months out, with the project gone well, and works back to first steps. Use it when people disagree on the goal itself.
  • "How does everyone feel about this?" Hopes and Fears is the shortest option, at 30 minutes. It fits a kickoff with new people, or a client project where both sides need to hear each other.
  • "How will we work together?" The Team Charter is for new or reorganized teams. It takes the full hour and leaves you with a short set of agreements to revisit.
  • "What do we do first?" MoSCoW sorts work into must, should, could and won't for the next sprint or release. SWOT is broader and suits a quarterly look at team strategy.
  • "How do we start the year?" The New Year board spends a little time on last year and most of it on resolutions and how the team will keep them.

Turning a kickoff into commitments

Kickoffs go wrong when the board fills up with risks and nobody owns any of them. Before the meeting ends, vote on the top three risks or priorities and turn each one into an action item with an owner and a concrete first step. "Ask the payments team for their API freeze dates this week" works. "Watch out for dependencies" doesn't.

The payoff comes at the next retro. Action items stay in the Team Room, so open the Previous Retro tab in the Action Items panel and check whether each risk owner did what they said. At the project's midpoint, a Hot Air Balloon retro shows which of the original risks turned real and which never came up.

If the people at your kickoff don't know each other yet, start with one of these retrospective icebreakers before the first note goes up.

Frequently asked questions

Can you run a retrospective at the start of a project?

Yes. Formats like the Pre-Mortem, Futurespective and Hopes and Fears use the same board, notes and voting as a retro, but point them at the work ahead instead of the work behind.

What's the difference between a pre-mortem and a futurespective?

A pre-mortem imagines failure and works back to risks. A futurespective imagines success and works back to first steps. Run the pre-mortem when a plan exists and you want to test it; run the futurespective when the team doesn't yet agree on the goal.

Should we run more than one of these at a kickoff?

One per meeting is usually enough. If you need two, run Hopes and Fears or a Team Charter at the kickoff and a Pre-Mortem a few days later, once the plan is clearer.

More formats by goal

Try any of these with your team

Your team adds notes during the sprint, CarrotIQ groups and summarizes them and suggests action items, and unfinished items carry into the next retro.

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