--- title: "Start Stop Continue Retrospective" description: "Teams categorize their recent workflow into actions to start, stop, and continue. They cluster shared themes, vote on priorities, and commit to tangible improvements." last_updated: "2026-09-07" canonical: "https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/the-start-stop-continue-retrospective/" --- # Start Stop Continue Retrospective Teams categorize their recent workflow into actions to start, stop, and continue. They cluster shared themes, vote on priorities, and commit to tangible improvements. **Time:** 50 minutes. Suggested standard UWT duration of 50 minutes to allow sufficient time for thorough clustering and concrete action planning. **People:** 4 to 16. Individual silent reflection followed by whole-room clustering, voting, and action planning. ## Choose this exercise **Purpose:** Identify process improvements by categorizing team practices into new initiatives, discontinued habits, and sustained routines. **Use it when:** Use at the end of a sprint, milestone, or project phase to evaluate collective working habits and agree on workflow adjustments. **Skip it when:** Skip when the team has not completed a collective cycle of work, or during an acute personal conflict requiring mediated dispute resolution. ## Materials and tools - Printed Start Stop Continue Reference Guide (one per participant) - Sticky notes in three colors (or one color with pen markers) - Fine-tip markers (one per participant) - Adhesive dot stickers (three per participant) or pens for tally marks - Wall space or whiteboard divided into three columns labeled Start, Stop, Continue - Digital whiteboard tool (for remote or hybrid formats) ## Before participants arrive 1. Draw three large vertical columns on a whiteboard or wall labeled Start, Stop, and Continue. 2. Distribute sticky notes, markers, and reference guides to all participants. 3. Prepare three voting dots per person. ## Say this to open Welcome to our retrospective. Today we are looking at our recent work cycle through three simple lenses: what we should start doing, what we need to stop doing, and what is working well that we should continue. Please write one clear, specific observation per sticky note so we can turn them into practical team actions. ## How to run it ### 1. Introduce framework (4 minutes) Explain the three columns using the opening script. Share one clear example for each: Start testing use cases before release, Stop starting daily standups late, and Continue meeting weekly project milestones. Clarify that cards should focus on processes rather than individuals. ### 2. Silent brainstorming (8 minutes) Ask participants to work silently and write one thought per sticky note across any of the three categories. Encourage raw, direct observations. Participants post their notes into the corresponding wall columns as they finish. ### 3. Review and cluster (14 minutes) Gather the group at the board. Read each card aloud rapidly. Group duplicate or closely related topics together with team consent. Clarify ambiguous cards without opening full debates yet. ### 4. Prioritize via voting (4 minutes) Distribute three voting dots to each person (or assign three digital votes). Instruct participants to place votes on the topics they consider most critical to address immediately. ### 5. Agree on action items (15 minutes) Review the top-voted cards in each column, focusing on the highest-priority Stop and Start items. Agree on concrete actions, limiting the commitment to one or two changes. Assign a named owner and target review date for each. ### 6. Debrief and close (5 minutes) Pose the debrief questions to the room. Hear three to four quick reflections. Record agreed actions in shared notes and photograph or export the finalized board. ## Debrief questions - Which agreed action item will produce the most immediate relief for our workflow? - How will we hold ourselves accountable to the items in the Stop column? **Finished output:** A prioritized wall or board of Start, Stop, and Continue notes, concluding with documented action items assigned to named owners. ## Remote Set up a digital whiteboard with three columns: Start, Stop, Continue. Participants add digital sticky notes during the silent writing phase. Read the cards aloud, merge duplicates, and use digital voting pins (three per person) to identify top priorities for the team discussion. ## Hybrid Use a shared online board for all participants. In-person participants type on individual laptops or a designated scribe inputs physical sticky notes onto the shared canvas so remote attendees can read and vote simultaneously. ## Access and participation choices - Participants may write notes privately and decline to read them aloud. - Passing during whole-room sharing is permitted without providing a reason. - Ideas can be submitted anonymously to a physical box or digital board. ## If the session gets stuck **Participants write personal complaints about individual colleagues on Stop cards.** Intervene immediately during the clustering step. Reframe the note around the systemic process or team working agreement rather than individual behavior. **The team generates too many Start ideas and becomes overwhelmed.** Enforce a strict cap during action planning: select only one or two Start experiments for the upcoming work cycle. ## Terms used here - Retrospective: A reflective team meeting held at the end of an iteration or project phase to evaluate work practices. - Dot Voting: A simple prioritization method where each person places a set number of sticker dots or marks on their preferred options. ## Participant material: Start Stop Continue Reference Guide START: New practices, tools, or experiments we should adopt to address current gaps. STOP: Ineffective habits, roadblocks, or recurring annoyances we should drop. CONTINUE: Working routines, reliable processes, and successful habits we want to keep. ## Sources and adaptation Observed in EasyRetro documentation as a standard agile sprint retrospective framework. Retained the three core categories (Start, Stop, Continue), silent brainstorm, review, dot voting, and action assignment from the EasyRetro source. UWT structured the facilitation into a 50-minute sprint retrospective schedule, specified exact participant materials, added concrete dot-voting rules (3 votes per person), and supplied neutral examples and debrief prompts. [EasyRetro](https://easyretro.io/templates/start-stop-continue/) Current run sheet: https://unitedwetransform.com/exercises/the-start-stop-continue-retrospective/