4 Options for doing free sprint retrospective’s online now
Are you searching for a “sprint retrospective online free”? Well, here you go! If you want to open an online retrospective right now and go the fast track, simply click on the button and you are ready to do the retrospective without anyone having to register. You can also read more on your other options below.
Sprint Retrospective Online Free
Options for free online sprint retrospectives
To begin with, of course there are a few ways to conduct a sprint retrospective online for free. It really depends on your goal and your budget.
-
First, of course, you could simply use your task management tools like Jira, Confluence, Trello or similar and collect feedback on the retrospective questions there. See: Thoughtful retrospective questions. Normally, the contents of tasks update live.
- Advantage: The retrospective data is stored where everything else is stored.
- Disadvantage: The retrospective feedbacks are collected where all activities take place 😄. So the advantage is also a disadvantage. It may be difficult to leave the “work routine” and switch to a “reflection” or meta level, which is helpful to collect good feedback in the retro. Furthermore, task management tools are not as flexible as retro tools. For example, they do not have anonymous voting functions and so on.
-
Use a digital whiteboard tool like Miro, Mural or similar if you are looking for a free online retrospective.
- AdvantageYou might already have a license for that. Whiteboards offer a lot of possibilities to be creative in your retrospective.
- Disadvantage: You often have to design and prepare the retrospective yourself. You do not have the opportunity to record measures directly, you have to do this in the follow-up. Sometimes it is more difficult to correctly maintain the structure of the retro.
-
Use a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation (with live collaboration) for online retros
- Advantage: Your team might be used to working in powerpoint
- Disadvantage: The tool was not developed for retrospectives, so many functions do not really support the flow of the retrospective: There is no timer, users influence each other when writing down feedback, no anonymous voting function - and similar points apply as with the whiteboard.
-
Use an online retrospective tool
- Advantage: Retrospective tools have all the features you need for a good retrospective (voting, topic clustering, action item integration into task management tools such as Jira), including many templates that save you time in the preparation and follow-up of a retrospective. In addition, good retrospective tools (e.g. Echometer) even help you with other challenges like a continuous (even cross-team) health check. If you want to learn more, have a look at 14 retrospective tools in comparison in our blog.
- Disadvantage: Some retrospective tools are relatively rigid or inflexible - you have to find the right one. In addition, team members may have to get used to the tool - although the good UX of modern tools usually provides a very good remedy here.
Online retrospective free: options in table
| Option | Rating | Comment |
|---|---|---|
| Task management tool | 🟡 | Practical if you already work in Jira, Trello or Confluence. For real reflection, anonymity and voting, however, it is usually too inflexible. |
| Digital whiteboard tool | 🟡 | Good for creative retros and often already available. Preparation, structure and tracking of action items, however, usually remain manual. |
| PowerPoint or Google Slides | 🔴 | Hardly any moderation features such as timer, anonymous feedback, voting or action item tracking. |
| online retrospective tool. | 🟢 | Best suited, as voting, clustering, templates, timer and action items are supported directly. Good tools save time before and after the session and lead to better results. |
My experience shows that it is usually worth trying a free online retrospective tool to achieve better results – especially as a beginner.
Sprint Retrospective Online Free: Echometer
As mentioned, Echometer is a free tool for conducting a sprint retrospective online, even with an unlimited number of participants. You can now start a free online retrospective by opening it without registration using the button below.
Conclusion - Sprint retrospective online free
Retrospectives are the central ceremony among agile meetings. You can make them “okay” and continue working in the old way. Or you can establish great retrospectives and solve many of the biggest challenges of agile teams (see Zombie Scrum).
Given that, I personally recommend to invest a lot of your efforts into good retrospectives.
You can find more retro ideas in our collection 32 Retrospective Methods.
