DAKI Retrospective

Choose this exercise

Purpose: Categorize team practices into four distinct buckets to decide what to discard, adopt, preserve, or refine.

Use it when: At the end of a sprint, project phase, or milestone when a team needs to reset agreements and working habits.

Skip it when: When team members have no shared project history to review, or when a critical defect demands immediate single-topic root cause analysis.

Group arrangement: Individual note writing, whole-room parallel posting and silent clustering, then whole-room prioritized action planning.

Timing: Matches the 30-minute timing described in the original source documentation.

Materials and tools

• Small pad of sticky notes per participant (aim for 1 to 2 notes per quadrant)
• Dark felt-tip markers (one per participant)
• Whiteboard, wall space, or poster divided into 4 quadrants: Drop, Add, Keep, Improve
• Voting dot stickers (3 per participant) or fine markers for dot voting
• Action log or shared tracker sheet

Before participants arrive

1. Draw a large 2x2 grid on a wall or whiteboard with four labeled quadrants: Drop, Add, Keep, Improve.
2. Write brief cues below each header: Drop (activities that hinder work and should stop), Add (new experiments or tools to try), Keep (practices working well that must continue), Improve (existing practices that need fine-tuning).
3. Place markers and sticky note pads at seats.

Say this to open

Today we will run a DAKI retrospective: Drop, Add, Keep, and Improve. We will review our recent work cycle across these four areas. You will write observations on sticky notes, post them to the board, group similar thoughts, vote on top priorities, and define practical action items.

How to run it

1. Set context and explain quadrants 3 minutes

   State the scope and timeframe being reviewed. Define the four quadrants. Provide a neutral example: 'Drop: booking status meetings without an agenda; Add: automated test alerts in Slack; Keep: 15-minute daily standups; Improve: how we estimate pull request sizes.' Remind everyone to write one clear thought per sticky note in bold letters.

2. Write individual notes 7 minutes

   Participants write sticky notes silently. Ask everyone to aim for 1 or 2 notes per category. Time the writing as a single block: encourage roughly 4 minutes total across Drop, Add, and Keep, and reserve the final 3 minutes specifically for Improve so people can detail refinements.

3. Post and cluster 8 minutes

   All participants walk up and post their notes in the appropriate quadrants. To handle up to 24 people within the time, ask participants to silently cluster similar notes as they post them. The facilitator scans the board, points out key themes, reads ambiguous notes aloud for quick clarification, and merges exact duplicates into consolidated topic cards.

4. Vote on priorities 4 minutes

   Give each participant 3 votes to place on the merged topic cards they consider most urgent for the upcoming cycle. Participants place their dots or checkmarks directly on the board. The facilitator circles the top 2 or 3 topics with the highest vote counts.

5. Agree actions and debrief 8 minutes

   Discuss the top 2 or 3 voted topics with the room. Formulate concrete commitments. For each chosen item, log a specific action, an assigned owner, and a completion date. The facilitator poses the debrief questions to ensure items under Keep are protected and Improve tasks have clear next steps.

Debrief questions

• Which item under Keep represents a practice we must protect even when delivery pressure spikes?
• What is the very first step the owner will take this week on our top Improve item?

Finished output: A populated DAKI board and a documented list of prioritized action items with assigned owners and due dates.

Remote

Create an online whiteboard with four quadrants: Drop, Add, Keep, Improve. Participants type digital sticky notes during the silent writing block. During clustering, everyone moves identical notes together simultaneously. Run dot voting using built-in digital stamp features (3 votes per person). Paste confirmed action items directly into the team project tracker.

Hybrid

Use a single shared digital board. In-person participants access the digital board on laptops or hand handwritten notes to a designated in-room digital scribe. In-person and remote participants take turns speaking to clarify merged cards. Screen-share the digital board in the physical room.

Access and participation choices

• Participants may submit notes aloud to a scribe or write them privately on personal paper first.
• Any participant may pass on speaking during the review phase without explanation.
• Read sticky notes aloud when clustering to assist participants with visual impairments.

If the session gets stuck

Participants confuse Improve with Add.

Remind the room that Add introduces an entirely new technique or tool, while Improve alters how the team runs an existing practice.

Discussion turns into broad complaints in the Drop quadrant without solutions.

Prompt the room with a concrete boundary: 'What exact activity or meeting do we agree to stop doing starting tomorrow?' Record the concrete stopping rule and move on.

Terms used here

• DAKI: An acronym for Drop, Add, Keep, Improve, used to categorize retrospective feedback.
• Dot voting: A prioritization technique where each participant places a fixed number of dots on preferred ideas.