🎉✨ New Year Resolutions
Welcome the new year by reflecting on our sprint, setting fresh resolutions, dropping old habits, and continuing our winning momentum.
Template Columns
🚀 Start Fresh Initiatives
Identify new practices or ideas to launch in the upcoming year.
Base column: Start🛑 Stop Old Habits
Pinpoint outdated processes or blockers to leave behind.
Base column: Stop🔄 Continue the Momentum
Highlight successful practices to keep driving forward.
Base column: ContinueAbout this template
A festive retrospective that reviews the past sprint, discards ineffective habits, and sets new year‑long resolutions.
When to use this template
Use at the start of a new calendar year or after a major milestone to align the team around fresh goals and reinforce what’s working.
How to facilitate
Begin with a quick ice‑breaker where each member shares one personal highlight from the past year.
Collect data for each column by asking participants to write individual sticky notes for Start Fresh Initiatives, Stop Old Habits, and Continue the Momentum.
Group similar notes together, discuss each cluster, and vote on the top three items in each column using dot voting.
Turn the top voted Start items into concrete resolutions with owners, deadlines, and success criteria.
Summarize the agreed actions, capture them in the shared board, and close with a brief affirmation of the team’s commitment.
Pro Tips
Limit each participant to three ideas per column to keep the discussion focused and avoid overload.
Use a silent digital poll for voting to prevent dominant voices from swaying the group.
Link each new resolution to an existing sprint goal or OKR to ensure alignment with broader objectives.
FAQ
What if the team can’t agree on which habits to stop?
Facilitate a brief pros‑and‑cons discussion for the most contested items, then use a quick poll to let the majority decide, ensuring everyone’s concerns are heard.
How do we turn resolutions into actionable work?
Break each resolution into a small, testable experiment with a clear owner, a start date, and a measurable success metric that can be reviewed in the next sprint.
Can this format work mid‑year?
Yes, you can run a ‘mini‑resolution’ session at any point to refresh priorities, just adjust the timebox to 30 minutes and focus on the most urgent columns.
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At a glance
- Duration
45–60 min
- Team Size
4-12 people
- Columns
3 columns
- Base Format
Start, Stop, Continue
Tags
Ready to get started?
Use this template to run your next retrospective