KALM Retrospective

The KALM retrospective is ideal for remote project teams and provides an excellent forum for a diverse group of people to provide feedback and work through issues. It challenges team members to think through how their team is performing and look for habits and processes they would Keep, Add, do Less of, and do More of. The retrospective is designed to equally engage all participants and draw out the best ideas from even the most reluctant introverts.

This template provides facilitators with a quick, easy to use set up for a KALM retrospective using Miro as their collaboration space. The KALM retrospective is ideal for teams of up to 12 people, and there are techniques for supporting much larger teams. 

The KALM retrospective is ideal to run within 3 months of forming a team, and then periodically to gauge improvements to team performance and culture. Teams that work closely together on a single purpose, such as the development of a software application, will benefit from regular retrospectives as part of their sprint schedule or with the delivery of a major milestone. Groups of people with varied purposes, such as those belonging to established departments, may be better served with a yearly review.

How to use the KALM Retrospective Template:

STEP 1 | Ask people to create their topics

Tell people they have 5 to 10 minutes to create and post all their topics. You may need to remind them where they should put each of their topics.

• Keep - What things is the team doing that you feel adds value and wish to keep

• Add - What things would you like to bring to the add to the team

• Less of - What things are already being done, but of which you rather do less of

• More of - What things are already being done which you believe will bring more value if done even more

As the facilitator, use this time to inspect the topics people are posting to give yourself a bit of a head start on the conversation. 

STEP 2 | Facilitate the meeting

Once all the topics have been posted take a moment to inspect the board and pick a starting place. Work through each topic, one at a time. For each topic, ask the author if they want to expand on it, if they had more to add, or to explain it if it’s unclear. Then ask if anyone has anything to add.

STEP 3 | Establish next steps and key takeaways

After all the topics have been discussed, it’s time to wrap up and set expectations for next steps. Once you have your next steps, thank everyone for their participation and wrap up.