Retrospectives are a fundamental part of the Agile process. They are designed for teams to look back on what they’ve done, identify what went well and what could be improved, and then take steps to improve. This article will go over some of the top tools to use for retrospectives that will make your product development cycle even more effective.
Here are some of the top 9 agile retrospective tools for effective product development.
What is an Agile Retrospective?
Retrospectives are a cornerstone of Agile product development. They provide a time-boxed opportunity to pause and reflect on the current state of the team and its processes.
It’s a time to identify what’s working well, what could be improved or scrapped, and what the team needs to keep growing.
In retrospectives, the team is encouraged to be honest about what they liked and didn’t like during the sprint. This encourages better communication, as people feel empowered to talk about their feelings and thoughts.
Before we go into the list of agile retrospective tools, let see a new exciting tool:
Top 10 Agile retrospective tools
1. Parabol online retrospective tool
Parabol is an online retrospective tool for remote teams. Parabol’s tool also comes with Sprint Poker estimation, team check-ins, and daily standups for the same price. Parabol’s goal is to make work meaningful and describes itself as an “agile meeting co-pilot”. Parabol makes running retrospectives more fun for participants and makes facilitating easier for Scrum Masters.
Parabol comes with a library of 40+ pre-made retrospective activities that teams can use, or customize to make their own. The retrospectives follow a linear process that leads teams to clear process improvements and action items. The tool also supports synchronous and asynchronous retrospectives.
Features:
- Start each meeting with an icebreaker: You can begin each meeting checking-in as a team before you start reflecting.
- Multiplayer grouping & advanced search: Everyone can get involved grouping stickies into themes. An intuitive advanced search feature lets you group more effectively.
- Timebox each phase: There are built-in facilitator tools like a timer, next button, emojis, anonymity and action items.
- Generate an automatic meeting summary at the end of each retro. With Parabol’s retrospectives, nobody has to take notes and action items are recorded in the tool. Action items can be sent to Jira or GitHub.
- Integrate with tools you already use: Parabol integrates with Atlassian Jira, GitHub, Slack, and Mattermost. Integrations with GitLab, Jira server, Microsoft Teams, and Azure DevOps are coming soon.
Pricing:
Parabol is free forever for up to two teams per company. After that, the pricing is $6 per active user per month. Parabol also offers an Enterprise plan with SSO and on-prem hosting if needed.
2. Neatro online retrospective tool
Neatro is an online retrospective tool made for remote teams. Neatro helps teams have meaningful conversations with interactive Agile retrospective boards and build action plans to improve sprint after sprint.
Neatro serves as an assistant to Scrum Master, Agile Coach, Engineering managers, etc. In facilitating the retrospective process, diving it into four different steps — Data collection, Data grouping, Discussion and Voting, and Creation of an Action plan.
With Neatro, teams get data-driven retrospectives.
Features:
- Keep track of the action plan: With an action item reminder, Neatro makes sure that action plans impact the team.
- Create themes and group comments: With this feature, teams can select themes based on researched challenges teams face and group comments with simple drag-drop.
- Timebox each step and vote efficiently: With this feature, teams can efficiently dot-vote ideas when discussing and voting to decide the action plan.
- Generate a report at the end of each retrospective, etc.
Pricing:
After a 30-day trial with “No credit card required,” pricing starts at $20 for a single team monthly and saves two months when subscribed annually.
3. Geekbot retrospectives
Geekbot’s retrospective use case keeps a log of what’s going well in projects, alongside what the team can improve on.
Integrated into Slack or Microsoft Teams, Geekbot is perfect for remote teams as it helps them analyze specific feedback, recent mistakes, plan for iterations when reporting on every project asynchronously.
Features:
- Retrospectives run on autopilot asynchronously
- A pre-filled template
- Data-driven insight
How it works:
- Step 1: Create and customize the retrospective for the team’s needs
- Step 2: Schedule the retrospective
- Step 3: Collect responses and engage with the team
Pricing:
- Start-up plan: $0 up to 10 participants
- Scale-up plan: $3.0 per participant per month
- Enterprise plan: Chat with sales.
4. GoRetro free retrospective tool
GoRetro is a free agile sprint retrospective tool designed to make the entire retrospective process simple, productive, and unlimited.
With GoRetro, product development teams will get the ability to create unlimited retro boards to gain some insight into what worked, what didn’t, what can be improved. Also, assign specific action items to individuals with due dates to ensure work is done efficiently and on time.
Features:
GoRetro is fully packed with a range of features which include:
- The ability to create teams and boards with an unlimited number of users.
- Board privacy.
- Board customization.
- Board organization and view.
- Easy sorting and filtering.
- Commenting.
- Voting.
- Action items.
- Ability to export any board to PDF, CSV, and clipboard.
Pricing:
GoRetro is 100% free.
5. EasyRetro fun retrospective tool
EasyRetro is a fun sprint retrospective tool designed for remote teams. With EasyRetro, teams not only have retros that are informative and contribute to the team’s functionality and efficiency but also do what most retrospectives forget to do: Engage the team.
EasyRetro tool ensures that teams maintain high morale by making retrospectives effortless and fun.
Features:
- Different ways of logging in
- Fully customizable board
- Ability to create teams
- See all boards
- Ability to sort cards by filters
- Commenting feature
- Vote on cards
- Drag and drop cards
- Export board to different file formats
- Quickly run surveys right on boards
- Slack integration for notifications
Pricing:
6. ScatterSpoke retrospective tool
ScatterSpoke is an agile retrospective tool that takes regular retros a step further by analyzing retrospective data and giving insight into team morale, bottlenecks, conflicts, and paths to resolution. With ScatterSpoke, teams can now get data-driven improvements they can measure from their retrospective meetings.
Teams can now run retros the way they like, import the data, and then use ScatterSpoke’s Team Pulse Report to see patterns, identify opportunities and keep everyone on the same page.
Features:
- Run effective retrospective meetings
- Team Pulse to gain insights from teams and leaders
- Integrations with third-party applications to export, import retrospective data, and also track tasks.
Pricing:
Teams can try any of ScatterSpoke plans (check website) free for 21 days. After that, ScatterSpoke is just $35/mo for up to 15 team members.
7. Retrium retrospective tool
Retrium is a retrospective tool that enables agile teams to have effective conversations, discover new insights and generate actionable improvement plans.
Retrium uses industry best practices to walk teams through an engaging retrospective from start to finish. Assisting the team from gathering data to deciding what to do collaboratively.
With Retrium, team members can privately share what went well or wrong during a sprint, vote for propositions, and prioritize discussions.
Features:
- Create custom retrospective formats
- Guided facilitation.
- Create action plans
- Integrate with teams Jira workflow
- View retrospective history.
Pricing:
- Team Edition plan $39 per team room (a dedicated team) per month.
- Business plan $59 per team room per month.
- Enterprise plan. Contact sales for pricing.
8. Miro retrospective tool
Miro offers a quick retrospective template tool for teams to look back at successes and failures to improve everyday practices. This retrospective template helps teams structure positive and negative feedback and plan improvements after a completed project or a working sprint.
With this retrospective template, teams can keep retrospectives organized, boost efficiency, and set actions.
Features:
- Real-time communication.
- Video chat or @mention features to boost engagement,
- Files upload. etc.
Pricing:
Free
9. Retros.work retrospective tool
Retros.work helps teams set up online retrospectives with just a few clicks. Retros.work focuses on human resources by allowing team members to express their feelings with emoticons and energy scores.
With Retros.work teams can vote for action items and create to-dos. Retros.work can be used for both remote and in-office retrospectives.
Features:
- Post retro feedback
- The ability for team members to express how they feel
- Energy trends graphs to see how team members are doing.
- Up and down vote
- Question models
- Retros.work works perfectly for remote and in-office teams.
Pricing:
- Free plan: $0 per month per user.
- The premium plan is $3.99 per month per user. As users increase, the prices drop per user.
10. TeamMood retrospective tool
TeamMood is a retrospective tool that helps teams gather daily insights into members’ feelings and their issues. With the valuable insights curated throughout the sprint, TeamMood helps teams prepare for retrospectives.
With the TeamMood mood chart and feedback features, teams can open up discussions during retrospectives.
Features:
- Easy and quick to use
- Mood tracking
- Anonymous feedback
- Analytics
Pricing:
- The business plan is $2 per month per user after a 30 days trial period.
- The Enterprise plan is of custom pricing.
How to choose the right Agile retrospective tool for your team?
There are many different agile retrospective tools, so it can be challenging for teams to choose the one that fits them. But, if they take time to explore all of their options and evaluate them before deciding, they will have a higher chance of choosing the right one for their specific needs.
Did we forget to include any retrospective tool you use? Share on the Zumvie Slack Community. Other engineering managers will love to hear your recommendations.”
