Retrospective template
Starfish retrospective template
The Starfish retrospective expands the classic three columns into five zones — keep doing, more of, less of, start doing, stop doing. The gradations matter: most process problems aren't binary, and "less of" captures the real answer more often than "stop".
When to use it
Use it when Start / Stop / Continue has begun flattening nuance — when the honest feedback is "we do too much of this" rather than "this is wrong". It suits teams several sprints into retrospectives who are tuning intensity, not direction.
Prompts
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Keep: what practice is earning its place exactly as it is?
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More of: what's working that we should lean into harder?
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Less of: what has value but currently costs more attention than it deserves?
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Start: what aren't we doing that the last sprint proved we need?
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Stop: what should end outright?
Facilitation
Draw the five zones before cards go up, and define "more of / less of" with an example so people don't treat them as soft versions of start/stop. Expect the interesting debate at the more-of/less-of boundary — that's where the team is actually calibrating. Convert calibration decisions into measurable actions: "less of" needs a number or a boundary, not a mood.
Where it goes wrong
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The five zones blur together and the retro becomes a slower Start / Stop / Continue.
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"Less of" items stay unmeasurable, so nothing visibly changes and the same card returns.
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Zone-sorting eats the meeting and the decide-and-own step gets squeezed out.
From format to follow-through
SmartRetro converts the patterns into next-cycle learning: calibration decisions become tracked actions with owners, and when the same zone fills up with the same theme across sprints, it's surfaced as a repeat pattern with its history attached.