Timeline-Retrospective

WHAT / WHEN / WHO

This template is for a team situation, where you as a moderator/coach want to reflect on how things have developed over time. A typical example would be to have this special retrospective with a team at the end of a year in order to look back:

• what went well

• what not?

• how do we look at our last months with some distance?

The main goal of this format is to celebrate what has been achieved; but also that we appreciate and reflect on the things that did not go so well (and by that find improvements or finish with them).

HOW

Most instructions can be found on the board directly. But a few hints and tips:

The main exercise is about collecting the most interesting, exciting, impactful events of a given period (e.g. at the end of a year looking back until January).

So ask the participants/team to come up with ideas and to write them on stickies.

In order to support the process certain event types (and matching symbols for those) are prepared

• Who left the team during that time; who joined?

• Did we have some team events?

• Kudos to colleagues for highlights during the year.

• What did not go well at all?

• Achievements, or milestones we want to point out?

• Feel free to adjust the given types according to your situation

Also, ask the team to "feel back": can they remember when they were in a good/bad mood? → indicate that with a dot on the timeline

After the participants have written down their ideas and used the symbols and dots to highlight their stickies: let each participant briefly explain, and describe their contributions to the timeline.

This exercise of reflecting is in itself already valuable - but in a second step the team can reflect:

• Any takeaways from the exercise/anything we want to do differently in the future?

• Let the participants think about some insights, create ideas, and discuss them.

• Close the session with a check-out