Roses, Thorns, Buds Retrospective

Why Roses, Thorns and Buds?

This template is ideally to be used as a retrospective exercise for your entire team after the completion of a project or program. It allows team mates to share their thoughts on “Roses”—the things that have been done well, “Thorns”—The things that need to be improved, and finally “Buds”—The things that still have potential.

Retro-ing together!

This collaborative activity opens up a space for each user to brainstorm on their own first on post-its, then potentially share out with the rest of the team. These post-it notes then can be synthesized to see “themes” that may have arisen. Each user adds their name in the “User” section of the board, they then write their thoughts on the equivalent area of post-it notes under “Roses”, “Thorns” or “Buds”.