ScatterSpoke vs. GoRetro: how to choose the perfect retrospective platform [2023]
GoRetro reviews are our latest blog series where we provide the facts about different retrospective tools - no BS and no hyperbole needed. Keep scrolling for our analysis and to learn more about all the retrospective tools out there. Enjoy! 😊
Sprint retrospective tools allow teams to look back on past performance to improve future performance, working like white boards and features templates of all types to help teams analyze their performance and stay organized. GoRetro and ScatterSpoke are two highly popular retrospective tools that have their similarities and differences. Depending on what your team prefers, one will surely be a good match.
ScatterSpoke vs. GoRetro: The high-level comparison
When it comes to getting your organization’s processes in order, the first step is knowing you need a solution. But the next step, actually picking and onboarding a new platform, is where things can get tricky.
👉 Both GoRetro and ScatterSpoke offer similar basic functionalities for running your next retrospective meeting, but GoRetro shines when it comes to deep data integration and top of the line security features right from the free tier (and not just for the enterprise tier).
Continue reading below and see how GoRetro and ScatterSpoke compare for all your organization’s needs.
More Top Retrospective Tools
In addition to GoRetro and ScatterSpoke, there are many other quality Agile retrospective tools. We researched and reviewed the leading retrospective tools and highlighted the essential information you need to know about each. Whether you're a Fortune 100 company or a smaller startup organizing a retrospective meeting, our review can help you narrow down your choices and decide which retrospective tool is right for your needs. See all of our top picks.
What is GoRetro?
GoRetro is a free SOC-2 certified, online sprint management tool that facilitates the entire sprint process; from planning to retrospective in a simple, collaborative and data-driven way. GoRetro is used by thousands of Agile teams across the globe, from garage startups to the biggest enterprises in the world (over 20% of S&P 500 companies use GoRetro), and constantly praised for its simplicity, ease of use, and flexibility.
What is ScatterSpoke?
ScatterSpoke is the Agile meetings tool for remote teams to run Agile ceremonies. It collects thoughts, ideas, concerns, and future action items as each Sprint is happening. Plus, team members provide feedback anonymously. The tools provide options for voting on idea cards, story cards' colors are different on each column, the creator of the board can invite team members by using a link, and members can access the board anonymously, to add their ideas and vote. In addition, the tool provides the option of pinning the idea card as a way to shortlist ideas. Lastly, it allows you to merge multiple ideas and export them as PDF or CSV format.
Features comparison
Both GoRetro and ScatterSpoke have the same basic features, which will be covered in the next sections, but they differ on the advanced features.
GoRetro integrates to your workflow and allows you to use your real-time Sprint data to run better retros and improve your team’s performance. Get a sense of what is happening, identify gaps in planning, and see what your team actually spends their time on. Moreover, it will allow you to analyze your sprints to identify trends, track improvements and uncover stumbling blocks. On average, we managed to increase participation by 80%. Save time on technical preparation and focus on what's important: getting better.
ScatterSpoke, on the other hand, puts an emphasis on the internal analysis of the retrospective by showing you the sentiment divided by theme (people, process, product, etc.) and summarizing the cards by theme (people, process, product, etc.) when you provide a category to the card.
The GoRetro security team spends days and nights to make sure your data is secured at the highest standards out there. We are SOC-2 and ISO 27001 certified, audited and evaluated by an independent auditor in all aspects of product, infrastructure, and policies. GoRetro has been certified as compliant with their stringent requirements.
Basic features comparison
Sprint retro collaboration
When it comes to boards, both platforms have retrospective templates and formats and fully customized boards. Furthermore, both platforms allow you to create color-coded cards, and team members can vote on decisions during meetings. GoRetro does take the feedback process a little bit further by adding a mood index that lets your team communicate how they are feeling about a project. ScatterSpoke lets you and your team create anonymous cards so your team remains unbiased. Furthermore, the platform gathers all your data and you can look back to further analyze your team’s performance.
When using GoRetro, you can assign roles to people in your team. The account admin can view and manage all boards and create and manage teams, the team admin can view and manage teams and boards that he or she is a part of, and the team member can only view and create boards in the team they are in. ScatterSpoke only has the facilitator role and the role of a team member who has access to the boards of teams they are in. The facilitator is the person that creates the retrospective, and they can control the visibility of votes and cards so that voters will not be biased. Furthermore, the team facilitator can give other team members facilitator controls when managing large teams.
Retrospective exporting
When it comes to integration with other platforms, ScatterSpoke fully integrates with Slack for you to easily be able to communicate with your team through the platform. The Trello and Jira integrations allow you to easily add action items to the platforms.
GoRetro and ScatterSpoke allow you to export your retrospectives if you need to keep them as backup or take them to an offline meeting. GoRetro’s boards can be exported as PDF, Excel, or Clipboard files, while ScatterSpoke’s retrospectives can be exported as PDF and Excel files, as well as shared via email.
Sprint Planning
GoRetro provides a space for you to plan every aspect of your sprint, from beginning to end. Capacity Planning for each team member is now clearer and easier than ever with the GoRetro Capacity Planning Dashboard. GoRetro also supports different estimation techniques and various score summarization methods from syncing your backlog management tool with GoRetro. This, combined with GoRetro's deep Jira integration that allows teams to see their velocity, carryover, buffers, and planned-versus-actual trends makes GoRetro's Sprint Planning tools everything your team needs.
What GoRetro and ScatterSpoke users have to say
ScatterSpoke has no reviews in G2, but GoRetro is ranked as the top performer for spring 2022. It has plenty of strong reviews and testimonials which mention its data-driven insights, simplicity, time saving and boost in participation as core benefits.
Pricing
ScatterSpoke offers a free account for up to 15 users with unlimited teams and unlimited retrospectives. The next tier of subscription is the "Business" account for $6/user/month or $5/user/month billed annually which includes features such as Configurable Sharing Policies, Single Sign On and Unlimited Guests. Their upper tier subscription "Enterprise" requires contact for details but offers additional features like SOC 2 & Penetration Reports, Dedicated Improvement Coordinator and Personalized Onboarding.
GoRetro free plan gives you the power to run meaningful retrospectives in a collaborative way. You get one team, unlimited users, unlimited private retrospectives, 5 public boards, and access to all our pre-built templates and advanced facilitation features, wrapped up with the highest level of security.
In the premium tier, users can benefit from advanced features such as integrations, data models, automatic sprint analysis, AI models, and so on.
The security team of GoRetro does not discriminate and offers the same level of security across all tiers. Plus, GoRetro is SOC2 & ISO 27001 certified, ensuring your data is protected by the latest security standards.
We know that the road to a new platform for your organization can seem like a long and complicated one, but by pairing the information we’ve reviewed with your unique insight about your team, it won’t be difficult to find the right retrospective tool to suit your needs. Our core product values are simplicity, ease of use and flexibility. We believe that retrospecting should not take you or your team out of focus or be an obstacle; it should be a fun experience. As such, we’ve made our user interface, features, and overall design seamless and intuitive. From the onboarding process to the meeting itself, GoRetro is your trusted partner.
👉 GoRetro is continuously releasing new features, so be sure to check out our changelog for updates.
👉 You can find useful articles at our Help Center and at our Blog. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to our support team.
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Thousands of scrum teams from Fortune 500 companies, banks, government agencies, and innovative startups use GoRetro to make their retrospectives fun, engaging and effective
Intuitive navigation between functions and menus, easy application but covers everything needed for a retrospective meeting. Great support team - quick response and frequent update of issue' status. I did 3 retro meetings with the GoRetro app and can't really find any difficulties or disadvantages of GoRetro. What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? The team easily communicates their opinion on the sprint; team feedback can be easily commented. Sorting by the number of votes facilitates team discussions in the area of topics for improvement.
Excellent tool that has come in handy on many projects. Don't know what I would do without it
GoRetro is the best retrospective tool I have ever
GoRetro is the best retrospective tool I have ever seen. It has everything we've ever wanted. It includes the ability to create unlimited retro boards, plenty of pre-built fully customizable templates, SOC-2 compliant, invite unlimited team members, comment, vote, drag/drop/merge, create action items, follow up trends in the analytics panel, export, and so on. There is nothing that stands out when it comes to disliking Attempt it! The team is pushing the envelope and putting the customer first (their SLA is out of this world). They also have all kinds of fun/mini tools that help us during meetings (ice breaker questions generator, for instance).Finally, the content on their website is incredible. What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? The main benefit is the boost in participation. GoRetro accomplishes this by allowing users to seamlessly collaborate without hassle. Moreover, I appreciate the different templates, ease of customization and ability to tailor the board to our needs.
The interface is clean and simple to use. The concepts
The interface is clean and simple to use. The concepts map perfectly well to normal retro processes with the ability to customize just enough to fit everyone's needs. The interface offers a column approach where people can vote, comment and transform items into actionable items. The board, when you have too many items to display can get tedious to manage with long columns. There is a timeboxing option but it is completely manual and not bound to individual items but it's not that bad. What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? My retros were done in all sorts of different tools, tried custom Jira boards, tried integrated tools like in VSTS, used an excel spreadsheet. Nothing ever feels complete. GoRetro offered a good balance of everything to fulfill my needs.
Easy to use, good templates and analytics. The sprint
Easy to use, good templates and analytics. The sprint summary looks very promising giving more insight than some Jira reports. Minor bugs as it's still in development. Good tool, give it a go if you are using Scrum What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? Running retrospectives remotely has always been a challenge but good tools are making our lives much easier.
Dashboard and teams. This is well-organised interface.
Dashboard and teams. This is well-organised interface. could not see anything yet that I don't like What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? this data-driven ai makes thing simple, easy to manage
it is easy to use and share with my team could have
it is easy to use and share with my team could have more design pizzazz, but that's just extra What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? this is allowing our company to do final project retrospectives
Easy to use and support core needs for my team retrospective
it is easy to use and share with my team could have
it is easy to use and share with my team could have more design pizzazz, but that's just extra What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? this is allowing our company to do final project retrospectives
- Easy to use- Support is available and answers very
- Easy to use- Support is available and answers very quickly- A lot of free features is available, it is very appreciable !! like unlimited boards per team, free to customize boards, board exportation...- Analytics section- Action Items section- Possibility to hide & merge cards in board- Happyness index in board- Team(s) creation + Boards per team Suggestions for improvments:In Board & in Action Items section:- Not possible to put several owner on action items- Not possible to remove the due date if put by mistake- Missing something distinguish visually the status (new, in progress, done) like a color for instance- Missing a status "Cancelled" for action itemIn Analytics section:- Not possible to see who had voted on happyness index- Missing a date when the retrospective was started (not only when the board has been created)- Missing a column about action items : how many action items were created in the board + how many action items are at status Done What problems is the product solving and how is that benefiting you? Before GoRetro :- With other retrospective tools, I didn't have unlimited boards- I had to write another document to summarize the retrospective and the action items to take for each retrospective of my teamBenefits :- GoRetro accelerates my work, especially with action items. It is easier to follow their progression.
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