Hopes and Fears Exercise for Kickoffs and New Teams

The hopes and fears exercise asks each person two things at the start of something new: their hopes for it and their fears about it. Then the team fills in a third column together: what would help. It takes 30 minutes and fits a kickoff or the week new people join. A worry said out loud becomes a risk the team can watch; an unspoken one becomes a surprise.

The three columns

Hopes and fears are personal. Most kickoff formats ask about the plan; this one asks about the people. "I'm afraid I'll be the only one who knows the deploy setup" is as useful as "I'm afraid the vendor will be late". Only one of them would show up in a project plan.

Where it comes from. No single person is credited with it. Hopes and fears is a long-standing kickoff and workshop exercise, and the Open Practice Library describes it as a way to surface expectations and concerns before work begins.

When to use it (and when not to)

Use it when:

• a project is starting with people from different teams or backgrounds
• new people are joining, or two teams are merging
• the team faces a change it didn't choose: a reorg, a new manager, a new process
• a long planning session is starting and you want expectations out first

Pick something else when:

• the plan is detailed and you need its risks, not people's worries. A pre-mortem goes deeper on what could break.
• the team has worked together for years and nothing is changing. The answers will be predictable; set a fresh goal with a futurespective instead.
• trust is so low that nobody will write a real fear. Run a psychological safety check first, and talk to people one-to-one.

How to run it live (30 minutes)

1. Check the carry-over. If the Team Room has run retros before, glance at the Previous Retro and Old / Unresolved Items tabs in the Action Items panel. An unresolved item is often someone's fear for the new work.
2. Go first. Share a real hope and a real fear. A small, honest fear ("I'm worried I'll be the bottleneck on reviews") gives everyone permission.
3. Write silently. Set the shared timer for seven minutes and ask for at least two of each. Remind people they can turn off Show Name.
4. Read and group. Read the hopes aloud first to set the tone, then the fears. Drag similar ones together. A fear three people wrote is a team risk.
5. Vote on fears. Dot vote with three votes each, then sort by Most Votes.
6. Ask what would help. Collect ideas for each top fear in the last column. Some need an action; some only needed saying.
7. Pick the fear to watch. Turn the most common one into a risk with an owner who checks it at each retro.

How to run it async over a sprint

People write more honest fears alone than in a room of new colleagues, so this format suits async well.

1. Before kickoff: a few days early, click Start New Retro, pick Hopes and Fears with Try a different format, and post your own hope and fear as the first notes.
2. Over the next few days: everyone adds at least two hopes and two fears. New joiners add theirs in their first week.
3. The day before: the facilitator groups themes, everyone votes on fears, and you read the CarrotIQ summary of each column.
4. Kickoff: spend 15 minutes on "what would help" for the top fears, live or in writing.
5. During the first sprints: if a fear starts coming true, it's already named and owned.
6. At the end of the project: open the board again from the Team Room's history. Which hopes came true? Which fears did?

More in how to run an async retrospective.

10 example prompts

Hopes

1. What would make this the best project you've worked on?
2. What do you hope to learn?
3. What do you hope this team is known for a year from now?

Fears 4. What's the worst thing that could realistically happen? 5. What happened on your last project that you don't want to repeat? 6. What are you worried you'll be expected to do? 7. What worries you about working with people you don't know yet?

What would help 8. What would make this fear less likely? 9. Who outside the team could help? 10. What could we agree today that would make you worry less?

Facilitator tip and a common pitfall

Tip: treat a fear several people share as a risk, not a feeling. If three people fear being pulled into support, that's a staffing risk with a likely cause. Put it in the plan, give it an owner, and check it at every retro until it's gone or it has happened.

Pitfall: reassuring fears away. Someone says "I'm worried the deadline is unrealistic" and the lead answers "Don't worry, it'll be fine." That person stops sharing, and the fear goes underground. Thank them, leave the note on the board and ask the room what would help. If nothing can, say so honestly.

How AI helps with this format

On Pro AI (and during the free trial), CarrotIQ handles the admin:

• Group names. Drag "pulled into support again" onto "on call every other week" and CarrotIQ names the group, for example "Support Interruptions". A neutral name lets people discuss a fear without feeling exposed.
• Summaries. The Sprint Summary condenses each column into a few sentences, plus an overall summary. Reread the fears summary at the end of the project.
• Suggested action items. CarrotIQ Suggest drafts an action from the notes, weighting the most-voted ones. Edit it and pick an owner.

Example action items

Most actions answer a fear. One or two should protect a hope.

At each retro these show in the Previous Retro tab, and anything still open stays under Old / Unresolved Items. More in retrospective action items that actually get done.

Use this template in Retro Rabbit

1. Start a 14-day free trial. No card is needed.
2. For one retro, click Try a different format in Start New Retro and pick Hopes and Fears: it applies to that retro only, and your Team Room keeps its usual columns. To make it the room's format, choose it under "Browse all formats" when you create your Team Room, or later in the Team Room's Settings.
3. Post one hope and one fear of your own before you invite the team, so the board isn't empty when they arrive.

See pricing for plans.

Related formats

• Pre-mortem template: when you need to find risks in the plan
• Futurespective: agree on what success looks like
• Team charter template: turn "what would help" into working agreements
• Mad Sad Glad: for feelings about a sprint that already happened
• More formats in Kickoff and planning
• All retrospective templates