Lean Coffee: A Retrospective Where the Team Sets the Agenda

Lean Coffee is a meeting with no fixed agenda. Everyone suggests topics, the group votes, and you talk about the top topic for a few minutes before deciding to continue or move on. In Retro Rabbit the board has three columns: To discuss, Discussing now and Discussed. It suits experienced teams who know what they want to talk about and don't need columns to prompt them.

The three columns

Write topics as questions. A good topic is something the author can explain in a sentence or two: "Is our definition of done too long?" works, "process" doesn't. Drag a note from one column to the next as the meeting moves, so anyone joining late can see where you are.

Where it comes from. Lean Coffee started in Seattle in 2009. Jim Benson and Jeremy Lightsmith wanted a group for discussing Lean in knowledge work that needed no committees or invited speakers, just people who showed up. The original board is a small kanban with columns for topics to discuss, the one being discussed and those discussed, and each person gets two votes. The five-minute rounds with a thumbs vote to continue come from the retro version on Retromat.

When to use it (and when not to)

Use it when:

• the team is experienced and the usual columns feel like a form to fill in
• several issues are competing for attention and you need the team to rank them, such as after a reorg or before a big planning session
• a group that meets regularly has no single owner of the agenda, such as tech leads from several teams

Pick something else when:

• the sprint had a clear event to look back on, like an outage or a release. Lean Coffee only covers what gets votes. A timeline retrospective walks through the whole sprint.
• the team is new or quiet. People who don't propose topics don't get heard. What Went Well asks everyone the same questions.
• you need to cover every area. Low-voted topics are skipped by design.

How to run it live (45 minutes)

1. Check last retro's actions. Open the Action Items panel. The Previous Retro tab shows last time's actions. Anything stuck in Old / Unresolved Items can become a topic in To discuss.
2. Collect topics. One topic per note, written as a question.
3. Introduce and group. Each author explains their topic in one or two sentences. Drag duplicates onto each other.
4. Vote. Two votes each, as in the original. Set dot voting with Maximum votes per user at 2 in the Team Room's Settings, then sort by Most Votes.
5. Talk in rounds. Drag the top note into Discussing now and start the timer for five minutes. When it ends, everyone gives a thumbs up or down. Mostly up: another five minutes. Mostly down: move the note to Discussed and take the next one.
6. Capture as you go. When a topic ends in a decision, add the action item before you move the note. Don't save them all for the last five minutes.

How to run it async over a sprint

The talking works best in real time, but collecting and ranking topics works well async. Topics come up during the sprint, and by retro day the board is already sorted.

1. Day 1: after the last retro, click Start New Retro so To discuss is open all sprint.
2. During the sprint: add a topic the moment you think "we should talk about this", on the board or with /retro your topic if your team uses Slack.
3. Mid-sprint: the facilitator reads the topics. If one is urgent, or small enough to settle in a message, settle it now and move it to Discussed.
4. Two days before the end: everyone uses their two votes.
5. The day before: the facilitator groups duplicates and reads the CarrotIQ Sprint Summary for To discuss.
6. Retro day: the meeting starts straight at the discussion, and a 30-minute call covers four or five topics. Teams across time zones can do it in writing: each top topic's author posts a short proposal, and the team replies by end of day.

More in how to run an async retrospective.

9 example prompts

To discuss

1. What's a decision we keep putting off?
2. What have you wanted to raise, but there's never been a good meeting for it?
3. What's changing next quarter that we haven't talked about?

Discussing now 4. What would we need to know to decide this today? 5. Is this a problem to solve now, or one to watch? 6. Who outside this room needs to hear about this?

Discussed 7. What did we decide, and who owns it? 8. If we decided nothing, is that on purpose? 9. Should this topic come back at the next retro?

Facilitator tip and a common pitfall

Tip: keep the timer strict. Five minutes feels short, and it's meant to. The thumbs vote lets the group choose to keep going, which beats one person talking for twenty minutes. A topic extended three times needs its own meeting, with an owner who sets it up.

Pitfall: talking without deciding. Topics written as questions invite discussion that never lands. Before a note moves to Discussed, ask: what are we doing about this, if anything? "Nothing for now" is a fine answer, as long as someone says it out loud.

How AI helps with this format

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

• Group names. To discuss collects overlapping topics. Drag "is one-week on-call too long?" onto "on-call burnout" and CarrotIQ names the group, for example "On-Call Load".
• Summaries. The Sprint Summary covers each column plus the whole retro. The Discussed summary is a quick record for anyone who missed the call.
• Suggested action items. CarrotIQ Suggest drafts an action from the notes, weighting the most-voted ones and skipping actions you already have. Run it at the end to check that no high-voted topic was left without an action.

Example action items

At the next retro, these appear in the Previous Retro tab. 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. Pick Lean Coffee from the format library: choose "Browse all formats" when you create your Team Room, or later in the Team Room's Settings.
3. In the same Settings, turn on dot voting and set Maximum votes per user to 2, as in the original Lean Coffee.

See pricing for plans.

Related formats

• Kanban retrospective: when you want to look at flow on your board, not open topics
• KPT: a light three-column structure if open topics start to drift
• What? So What? Now What?: when one topic needs a deeper, structured look
• Plus / Delta: a 15-minute check for a short slot
• More formats in Kanban and lean
• All retrospective templates