itk-retro-rundown

name	itk-retro-rundown
description	A structured, facilitated conversation that helps a team reflect on a completed activity or event by comparing what was expected with what happened and identifying concrete improvements.
intent	Refine processes and strengthen what’s working. Improve performance against specific objectives. Discuss challenging topics constructively (e.g., “what isn’t working well”). Build shared understanding to better analyze issues and decisions.
type	component
phase	evaluate
outcome	evaluate
difficulty	beginner
group_size	4+ people
time_required	45+ minutes
best_for	["Sprint retrospectives where the team needs to surface systemic friction before committing to next iteration's process changes","Post-launch reviews after a major release to compare expected outcomes against actual adoption and team experience","Quarterly OKR wrap-ups to evaluate what drove or blocked objective progress before setting next cycle's goals","Post-mortems on a missed deadline or sponsor escalation where blame risk is high and trust is fragile","End-of-discovery-phase reflection to capture process learnings before transitioning into delivery"]
sources	["MITRE Innovation Toolkit (ITK)","https://itk.mitre.org/toolkit-tools/retro-rundown/"]

Retro Rundown

What Is It

A structured, facilitated conversation that helps a team reflect on a completed activity or event by comparing what was expected with what happened and identifying concrete improvements.

Why Use It

Refine processes and strengthen what’s working. Improve performance against specific objectives. Discuss challenging topics constructively (e.g., “what isn’t working well”). Build shared understanding to better analyze issues and decisions.

When to Use It

After any completed activity or event—large (final presentation, end-of-year deliverable) or small (sponsor check-in, weekly team sync). The sooner after the activity, the better.

How to Do It

1. Event Data: Complete the basic information about the event, project, or activity.
2. Project Check-in: Each team member creates a sticky note with their name. Choose an icon that reflects how you’re feeling about the project and place it under your sticky. Invite everyone to share a brief explanation.
3. Pass out red (rose), green (bud), and blue (thorn) sticky notes to participants and have them write the strengths, opportunities, and challenges associated with the topic. If colored sticky notes are not available, use red, green, and blue markers with plain sticky notes, or use a whiteboard with colored markers. Optional: Use the Rose, Bud, Thorn worksheet as your guide.
4. Encourage participants to generate multiple issues, insights, or ideas, but to capture only one per sticky note.
5. Group the colored sticky notes on a whiteboard or similar surface according to rose, bud, and thorn.
6. If desired, participants can group or cluster items further by priority or related themes and give each group a title.

Key Concepts

Rose, Bud, Thorn — A color-coded framing where roses are strengths/wins, buds are emerging opportunities worth nurturing, and thorns are challenges or friction. It forces balanced reflection rather than a gripe session or a self-congratulatory recap.

Expectation vs. Reality Gap — The core analytical move of comparing what the team planned or assumed against what actually happened. Naming this delta is where most actionable retro insights originate.

Project Check-in (Emotional Pulse) — An opening round where each person signals how they feel about the work via an icon and brief share. It surfaces morale and psychological safety signals that quantitative metrics miss.

Affinity Clustering — Grouping individual sticky notes into themes so recurring issues become visible as patterns rather than isolated complaints. Clustering separates systemic problems from one-off noise.

Action Conversion — Translating retro observations into owned, tracked action items with accountability. Without this step the retro produces venting instead of process change, and participation degrades over time.