36 Sprint Retrospective Questions to Run Better Retros

Q: How many questions should a sprint retrospective have?

Pick 3 to 5 questions for a 60-minute retro. One warm-up, two or three core prompts, and one action-focused close. More than five tends to surface ideas that never get discussed.

Q: What are good sprint retrospective questions for a remote team?

Favour prompts that produce written cards before discussion — Mad/Sad/Glad, Start/Stop/Continue, or 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed-for). Silent writing reduces the bias of whoever speaks first on a video call.

A curated bank of 36 prompts for Scrum Masters and team leads — grouped by warm-up, process, collaboration, technical health, morale and action. Pick three to five for your next sprint review and skip the awkward silence.

How to pick the right questions for your team

A retrospective is not a survey — you do not need to ask everything. The best retros run on three to five focused prompts that match the mood of the team and the outcome of the sprint. A rough rule of thumb:

Sprint went well, team is energised. Push past celebration: ask about hidden risks (Q11, Q24) and what you should stop doing before complacency sets in (Q8). Skip morale prompts — you already know the answer.

Sprint missed the goal. Resist the urge to interrogate. Start with a low-stakes warm-up (Q3 or Q5), then run one process prompt (Q7 or Q9) and close fast on actions (Q33–Q36). One concrete change beats five blamey post-mortems.

Team feels flat or burnt out. Lead with morale (Q28–Q32). Save process for next sprint. People will not engage with workflow tweaks when they are exhausted; you will get blank cards and resentment.

Brand new team or first sprint together. Anchor on collaboration (Q15–Q21) and how you want to work, not what just happened. Future-tense prompts build the contract; past-tense prompts assume one already exists.

Rotate at least one prompt every two to three sprints. The same questions every fortnight produce the same surface answers; a new angle uncovers issues the team has stopped noticing.

Warm-up & check-in

Use one of these to open. They give quiet team members an easy first turn and surface the emotional baseline before you dig into anything substantive.

In one word, how did this sprint feel?
What is your energy level right now, out of 10 — and why that number?
What is one thing from this sprint you would put in a museum?
If this sprint were the weather, what kind of weather was it?
What did you learn this sprint that you did not know two weeks ago?
What is one thing you are looking forward to next sprint?

Process & sprint execution

The bread and butter of any retro. These prompts focus on how the work flowed — planning accuracy, handoffs, scope, ceremonies. For deeper format inspiration, see our guide on sprint retrospective ideas.

What part of the sprint plan held up best, and what cracked first?
What should we stop doing because the cost is no longer worth it?
Where did we lose the most time to context switching this sprint?
Which ticket took twice as long as estimated — and what did we miss when we sized it?
What risks did we know about but choose not to mitigate? Did that bet pay off?
Which meeting this sprint produced the most value? Which produced the least?
If we ran this exact sprint again, what would we change before day one?
What got blocked, and how long did it stay blocked before someone unblocked it?

Team & collaboration

Prompts that look at how people worked with each other, not just on tickets. These tend to surface the slow-burn issues — quiet rework, missed handoffs, decisions made in side channels.

When did you feel most supported by a teammate this sprint?
What decision got made without enough of the right people in the room?
Where did we silo work that we should have paired on?
Whose work did you depend on most this sprint — did they know that?
What feedback have you been sitting on that you would share if it were anonymous?
What is a small thing a teammate did this sprint that deserves more credit?
Where did we duplicate effort because two people did not know they were on the same problem?

Technical & engineering health

For engineering teams. These steer the conversation toward code, infrastructure, tooling and tech debt — the things that quietly add 10% to every estimate until you talk about them.

What part of the codebase did we touch this sprint that we now understand better — or trust less?
What broke in production (or staging) this sprint, and what did the fix actually cost us?
Where is technical debt slowing us down most right now? Is it on anyone's roadmap?
Which test failure or flaky build wasted the most engineering time?
What tooling change (CI, IDE, deploy, observability) would have saved us hours this sprint?
Did we ship anything we are nervous about? Why are we nervous, and what would calm us?

Morale & psychological safety

Use sparingly — at most one per retro — but use them. They expose the human cost of velocity targets, on-call rotations and crunch sprints before it shows up as attrition.

What kept you up at night this sprint, work-related or otherwise (only share what feels OK)?
Did anything happen this sprint that you wish had been handled differently — by you, by a teammate, or by leadership?
Where did you feel safe disagreeing this sprint? Where did you not?
On a scale of 1–5, how proud are you of what we shipped — and what would push that up by one point?
If a friend asked whether they should join our team this week, what would you honestly say?

Action-oriented close

End every retro with one of these. The point of a retrospective is not insight — it is change. If you walk out without a named owner and a date, the next retro will surface the same complaints.

What is the single most important thing we agreed to change before next sprint — and who owns it?
Of the actions from the last retro, which ones did we actually do? Which got dropped, and why?
What is one experiment we will try for exactly one sprint, then evaluate?
What do we want the next retro to look back on and say "we are glad we changed that"?

Copyable list — all 36 questions in plain text

Sprint Retrospective Questions — 36 prompts (source: retroharbour.com)

WARM-UP & CHECK-IN
1. In one word, how did this sprint feel?
2. What is your energy level right now, out of 10 — and why that number?
3. What is one thing from this sprint you would put in a museum?
4. If this sprint were the weather, what kind of weather was it?
5. What did you learn this sprint that you did not know two weeks ago?
6. What is one thing you are looking forward to next sprint?

PROCESS & SPRINT EXECUTION
7. What part of the sprint plan held up best, and what cracked first?
8. What should we stop doing because the cost is no longer worth it?
9. Where did we lose the most time to context switching this sprint?
10. Which ticket took twice as long as estimated — and what did we miss when we sized it?
11. What risks did we know about but choose not to mitigate? Did that bet pay off?
12. Which meeting this sprint produced the most value? Which produced the least?
13. If we ran this exact sprint again, what would we change before day one?
14. What got blocked, and how long did it stay blocked before someone unblocked it?

TEAM & COLLABORATION
15. When did you feel most supported by a teammate this sprint?
16. What decision got made without enough of the right people in the room?
17. Where did we silo work that we should have paired on?
18. Whose work did you depend on most this sprint — did they know that?
19. What feedback have you been sitting on that you would share if it were anonymous?
20. What is a small thing a teammate did this sprint that deserves more credit?
21. Where did we duplicate effort because two people did not know they were on the same problem?

TECHNICAL & ENGINEERING HEALTH
22. What part of the codebase did we touch this sprint that we now understand better — or trust less?
23. What broke in production (or staging) this sprint, and what did the fix actually cost us?
24. Where is technical debt slowing us down most right now? Is it on anyone's roadmap?
25. Which test failure or flaky build wasted the most engineering time?
26. What tooling change (CI, IDE, deploy, observability) would have saved us hours this sprint?
27. Did we ship anything we are nervous about? Why are we nervous, and what would calm us?

MORALE & PSYCHOLOGICAL SAFETY
28. What kept you up at night this sprint, work-related or otherwise (only share what feels OK)?
29. Did anything happen this sprint that you wish had been handled differently?
30. Where did you feel safe disagreeing this sprint? Where did you not?
31. On a scale of 1–5, how proud are you of what we shipped — and what would push that up by one?
32. If a friend asked whether they should join our team this week, what would you honestly say?

ACTION-ORIENTED CLOSE
33. What is the single most important thing we agreed to change before next sprint — and who owns it?
34. Of the actions from the last retro, which ones did we actually do? Which got dropped, and why?
35. What is one experiment we will try for exactly one sprint, then evaluate?
36. What do we want the next retro to look back on and say "we are glad we changed that"?

Run your next retro in 30 seconds

Pick any prompt from this list, drop it onto a Retro Harbour board, and share the link with your team. No accounts, no paywall, real-time.

Start a free retro board

Frequently asked questions

How many questions should a sprint retrospective have?

Pick three to five for a 60-minute retro. One warm-up, two or three core prompts, and one action-focused close. More than five tends to surface ideas that never get discussed — and undiscussed cards build cynicism.

What are good sprint retrospective questions for a remote team?

Favour prompts that produce written cards before discussion — Mad/Sad/Glad, Start/Stop/Continue, or 4Ls (Liked, Learned, Lacked, Longed-for). Silent writing reduces the bias of whoever speaks first on a video call. Q7, Q8 and Q15 work well as silent-write prompts.

Should retrospective questions change every sprint?

Yes — rotate at least one prompt every two to three sprints. The same questions every fortnight produce the same surface answers; varying the angle uncovers issues the team has stopped noticing.

What is the difference between retrospective questions and retrospective ideas?

Questions are the prompts you ask. Retrospective ideas are the formats and structures (Start/Stop/Continue, Sailboat, 4Ls, Mad/Sad/Glad) that organise those prompts on the board. You usually pair the two: a format provides the columns, the questions populate them. For worked examples of complete retros, see sprint retrospective examples.