Explorer, Shopper, Vacationer, Prisoner (ESVP)
A quick team check-in activity that measures team members' attitudes toward your meeting or retrospective. This simple but powerful icebreaker helps teams gauge engagement levels and create more meaningful collaboration sessions with better participation.
What Is the ESVP Check-in?
ESVP is a short icebreaker activity developed by Esther Derby and Diana Larsen in their book "Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great." The exercise uses four distinct personas to help team members express their current mindset toward the meeting:
- Explorer: Someone eager to discover new ideas and insights, wanting to learn as much as possible
- Shopper: Someone willing to examine all available information but satisfied with finding just one useful idea
- Vacationer: Someone not particularly interested in the meeting but happy for a break from regular work
- Prisoner: Someone who feels forced to attend and would rather be doing something else
This metaphor provides a simple framework for team members to honestly communicate their engagement level without needing to explain their feelings in detail.
Benefits & When to Use
ESVP is particularly valuable when:
- Starting a new retrospective format with your team
- Sensing that team engagement might be low
- Wanting to address meeting effectiveness
- Establishing or reinforcing psychological safety
- Checking if the meeting is actually necessary for everyone attending
The activity benefits remote teams by:
- Providing immediate visibility into team engagement
- Creating an opportunity to adjust meeting formats on the spot
- Giving quieter team members a low-risk way to express dissatisfaction
- Helping facilitators tailor their approach based on the room's energy
How to Run an ESVP Session
Introduce the activity (2 minutes)
- Explain the purpose: to gauge the team's attitude toward today's meeting
- Emphasize that honest responses help make better use of everyone's time
Explain the four personas (3 minutes)
- Describe each persona clearly, using the definitions provided in the template
- Reassure participants that all responses are valid and there are no "wrong" answers
Facilitate participation (2 minutes)
- Ask team members to place a token or sticky note in the quadrant that best represents their current mindset
- If anonymity is important, have everyone add their tokens simultaneously
Review and discuss the results (5-10 minutes)
- Ask open questions like: "What does this distribution tell us about our meeting today?"
- If there are many "Prisoners" or "Vacationers," discuss how to make meetings more valuable
- Remind the team that meetings should be useful for participants
Tips for a Successful ESVP Session
Establish psychological safety first — This activity requires trust, as people need to feel comfortable expressing potential disinterest or dissatisfaction.
Consider anonymity — Use the provided colored tokens rather than asking people to identify themselves if your team is still building trust.
Follow through on feedback — If results show low engagement, be prepared to adjust the meeting format or even end early if appropriate.
Normalize all responses — Make it clear that being a "Prisoner" isn't bad; it's valuable information that helps the team improve how they use their time.
Use regularly but sparingly — Running this check-in occasionally (perhaps monthly) helps track how meeting engagement evolves over time without overusing the technique.
Remember that the goal isn't to eliminate all Vacationers and Prisoners but to create awareness and discussions about how your agile team uses their collaborative time together.
