What is a Mad Sad Glad Retrospective
The Mad Sad Glad retrospective is a model that guides participants to categorize sprint experiences into three buckets—things that made them mad, sad, or glad. Originated as a simple emotional check-in for agile teams, this structure helps surface morale issues and emotional undercurrents early on. While effective for highlighting general feelings, the retrospective mad sad glad technique may limit deeper analysis when overused.
Top Mad Sad Glad Alternative Retrospective Formats
1. 4Ls Retrospective
The 4Ls retrospective format expands feedback beyond simple emotional categories. By focusing on what team members Liked, Learned, Lacked, and Longed For, this technique fosters well-rounded discussions. It promotes both positive reinforcement and constructive critique, making it ideal for teams seeking detailed, actionable insights.
- Liked: Highlights successful practices or positive outcomes to maintain morale and replicate best behaviors.
- Learned: Captures new skills, knowledge, or discoveries that emerged during the sprint.
- Lacked: Identifies missing resources, information, or support hindering progress.
- Longed For: Reveals team aspirations or desired changes for future sprints.
2. Sailboat Retrospective
The Sailboat retrospective employs a maritime metaphor to help teams assess sprint dynamics. This visual approach encourages risk identification and strategic planning in a collaborative setting.
- Wind: Lists supportive factors like efficient processes, strong collaboration, or helpful tools.
- Anchors: Captures impediments such as unclear requirements, technical debt, or resource constraints.
- Risks: Pinpoints potential future threats that could slow momentum.
- Actions: Defines tasks to strengthen winds and lighten anchors before the next sprint.
3. Start, Stop, Continue Retrospective
The Start, Stop, Continue retrospective offers a simple framework for focused feedback. It works well for teams new to retrospectives and those seeking quick alignment. Teams decide which practices to start implementing, which to stop doing, and which to continue in the next sprint. This clarity accelerates decision-making and aligns participants around actionable goals.
- Start: Introduce new ideas, tools, or processes to improve efficiency and quality in the upcoming sprint.
- Stop: Eliminate practices, meetings, or dependencies that no longer add value or slow down progress.
- Continue: Reinforce existing methods and habits that consistently drive positive results.
- Outcomes: Translate feedback into specific, measurable goals, ensuring clear accountability and follow-up.
4. Starfish Retrospective
The Starfish retrospective refines feedback by splitting observations into five categories: Keep, Less, More, Stop, and Start. This granular layout helps teams dive into specific behaviors, fostering balanced conversations that span both reinforcement and improvement areas.
- Keep: Practices the team wants to maintain due to proven value.
- Less: Elements to reduce that may be draining resources or focus.
- More: Areas to amplify for increased impact or efficiency.
- Stop: Actions or processes that impede progress and should cease entirely.
- Start: New initiatives or experiments to test in the next sprint.
Why You Need Mad Sad Glad Alternatives
Prevent Retrospective Fatigue: Rotating formats keeps discussions fresh, avoids disengagement, and stimulates new thinking.
Enable Deeper and Broader Insight: Alternatives allow teams to explore not just emotions, but also technical, process, and strategic issues.
Enhance Inclusivity and Reduce Bias: Different formats give quieter voices a platform and challenge dominant opinions or groupthink.
Adapt to Team Needs and Sprint Goals: Tailoring the retrospective structure helps focus on specific outcomes like decision-making, innovation, or root-cause analysis.
Support Team Growth and Maturity: As teams evolve, they benefit from more sophisticated or targeted retrospective frameworks.
Overcome the Limits of Emotion-Only Feedback: Glad Sad Mad centers on emotional reactions, which can overlook root causes, actionability, and systemic challenges—limiting the impact of your retrospective.
Limitations of Mad Sad Glad Retros
Overemphasis on Emotion: Focusing too heavily on emotional labeling can result in vague or repetitive feedback, reducing the depth and actionability of insights.
Participation Imbalance: Vocal team members may dominate discussions, limiting contributions from quieter voices and skewing the retrospective’s outcomes.
Surface-Level Insight: The simplicity of the format can prevent deep dives into complex issues, leading to shallow discussions.
Format Fatigue: Repeating the same structure across sprints can cause retros to become stale and less engaging.
Narrow Focus: Mad Sad Glad may miss broader dynamics like workflow efficiency, tooling issues, or cross-functional challenges.
Mad Sad Glad Alternative Examples
Helpful Resources for Making Retrospectives
A comprehensive guide covering all there is to know about retrospectives.
Learn all about common mistakes to avoid when running retrospective meetings.
Learn fun ways of conducting retrospectives for hybrid teams.
FAQs about Mad Sad Glad Alternatives
Why should we use alternatives to Mad Sad Glad?
When should we try a new retrospective format?
Switch formats when your team:
- Feels disengaged with current retros.
- Is facing complex challenges that need strategic thinking.
- Has reached a new stage in team maturity.
- Needs to focus on external factors or cross-functional collaboration.
Do different formats work better for different teams or projects?
Can we combine multiple retrospective formats?
Resources
Hoon, Alice, et al. “Use of the “Stop, Start, Continue” Method Is Associated with the Production of Constructive Qualitative Feedback by Students in Higher Education.” Assessment & Evaluation in Higher Education, vol. 40, no. 5, 17 Sept. 2014, pp. 755–767, https://doi.org/10.1080/02602938.2014.956282.
Matthies, Christoph, et al. “Counteracting Agile Retrospective Problems with Retrospective Activities.” Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol. 1060, 2019, pp. 532–545, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-28005-5_41.
