Project Retrospective

The Inktrap Project Retrospective template is a tool that the Inktrap team use internally to come together at the end of a project and reflect. During our retrospectives, we discuss what went well, what didn’t go so well, what we can improve on and actions to take forwards to future projects.

Having a retrospective helps open up discussions about what works and what doesn’t work in our project flow. We have designed the template in such a way that it allows us to have honest conversations as a team. Our retrospective template helps guide the conversation so teams can discuss any issues or problems that have arisen without feeling the pressure of having to ask for a conversation about specific issues. By having these conversations regularly, your team can discover solutions to these problems and actions to carry forward to future project to avoid the same issues occurring again.

Our retrospective template also helps teams recognise what went well and the processes that work best for them. The template provides an opportunity for the team to see what they should continue doing to keep future projects running smoothly.

When to use the Inktrap Project Retrospective template:

At Inktrap we like to do retrospectives at the end of every project and even throughout bigger projects when a milestone has been hit. This template works both as a guide for the meeting structure and as a place to collaboratively document every team members feelings on the project. By having these open discussions with the full team after each project we have found that it helps to improve our relationship as a team, allowing us to communicate honestly and effectively.

How does the Inktrap Project Retrospective template work?

This template guides you through 5 different discussion points:

• Project details and summary: Clarifying the roles of each team member, who did what and any other things to note before beginning the retrospective.

• What went well? Discussing the positive points and successes of the project as well as goals that were met.

• What didn’t go so well? Having an open conversation about any negative points of the project, the things that made the project hard work and any hurdles that were encountered.

• What will we do better? Discussing what lessons have been learned from the things that didn’t go so well and what can be done next time to ensure the same mistakes don’t happen again.

• What actions will we take forward? Creating achievable actions from the things you plan to do next time. Breaking down the ‘what we will do better’ statements into detailed actions that you can do as a team.