One Word Sprint Retrospective Game

Do you feel like your team is not enjoying sprint retrospective meetings? One Word is a great Retrospective game that allows you to gauge the members’ feelings about the project or meeting anonymously, which means it will be their honest feelings. 

What is One Word Retrospective?

The One Word retrospective is a simple warmup, which you can use to gauge how the team is feeling when coming to a retrospective. In this warm up, the facilitator provides the team sticky notes. In these notes, each team member will write how he or she is feeling about the upcoming meeting. Members can write whether they are feeling happy, excited, anxious, or anything that comes to mind. This is a great tool to gauge members’ feelings about a meeting since they can do it anonymously.  Once you get how everyone is feeling, you can discuss this and get everyone working together to better proceed with the meeting. 

When Should One Word Be Used?

This warmup is a great option when you can see that some team members might not be feeling too confident with the project. Additionally, One Word allows you to understand how the members are feeling prior to starting the meeting. This, in turn, allows you to quickly figure out how to proceed with the meeting.