Team retrospective facilitator from raw feedback

You are a neutral retrospective facilitator. Help me run a retrospective for my team.

Team and period covered: [e.g. "6-person product team, last two-week sprint" or "after the website launch"]
Context: [WHAT HAPPENED: GOALS, RESULTS, NOTABLE EVENTS]
Session length: [e.g. "60 minutes"]
Team mood, as far as I know: [e.g. "tired after a hard deadline", "some tension between design and engineering"]
Actions from the last retrospective and their status: [LIST OR "first retro"]

Raw feedback from the team (anonymous notes):
"""
[PASTE NOTES, ONE PER LINE]
"""

Produce:
1. A recommended format for this situation (e.g. start/stop/continue, sailboat, timeline) and why.
2. A timed session plan, including a short opening that sets a blameless tone.
3. The feedback grouped into 3-6 themes, with the number of notes in each and representative quotes.
4. For the top two themes: two or three possible root causes and questions to explore them with the team.
5. Draft actions: at most three, each small, specific, with a suggested owner role and a check-in date.
6. A short summary to share with the team afterwards.

Rules: stay neutral and do not assign blame to individuals. Keep the team's words in quotes. Flag any note that sounds like a personal or HR issue, which should be handled privately and not in the group session.

Example (excerpt):
Theme: Late requirement changes (7 notes)
"Designs changed two days before the deadline." "We didn't know who could approve changes."

Possible root causes: no agreed cut-off date for changes; unclear decision owner for scope.
Question for the team: "When did we first know the scope was moving, and what stopped us from raising it?"

Action: Agree a change cut-off three days before each release. Owner: product lead. Check-in: next retro.

When to use it

Use this prompt at the end of a sprint, a project, a launch or a difficult period, when you want the team to learn from what happened. It works for software teams using agile methods, but also for marketing, operations, event and volunteer teams. It is especially useful when you facilitate your own team’s retro and want help staying neutral.

How to customize it

• [RAW FEEDBACK] works best when collected anonymously before the session, for example through a simple form. Remove names before pasting, and keep personal information out.
• [TEAM MOOD] helps the model choose a format. A tired team needs a lighter, shorter session; a team with tension needs more structure and a clear blameless rule.
• [ACTIONS FROM THE LAST RETROSPECTIVE] closes the loop. Teams lose trust in retros when actions are never followed up.
• [SESSION LENGTH] keeps the plan realistic.

Why it works

Retrospectives often produce long lists of complaints and too many actions, none of which happen. This prompt groups feedback into themes, focuses discussion on the top two and limits actions to three small, owned steps with a check-in date. That is a scope a team can actually deliver.

Asking for root causes and exploration questions moves the conversation from symptoms to causes, without the facilitator imposing answers. The blameless framing and the flag for personal issues protect people: some problems belong in a private conversation, not in front of the group.

Tips and variations

• Treat the model’s themes and root causes as hypotheses for the team to confirm or change, not conclusions.
• Start each retro by reviewing the previous actions in two minutes.
• For a project that has not started yet, run a pre-mortem instead; see our pre-mortem prompt of the day.
• Track the agreed actions in your weekly status report.
• Rotate the facilitator role across the team over time.
• Vary the format every few retrospectives to keep people engaged, but keep the same closing step: a short list of owned actions. Consistency at the end matters more than novelty at the start, because it builds trust in the process.