Joy, Fear, Excitement! Retrospective

Explore team emotions and sentiment with the Joy, Fear, Excitement retrospective template. This powerful emotional reflection framework helps agile teams understand what brings them joy, what causes fear, and what creates excitement in their projects and processes.

What Is the Joy, Fear, Excitement Retrospective?

The Joy, Fear, Excitement retrospective is an emotion-focused retrospective format that encourages team members to reflect on their emotional responses to work. By focusing on these three powerful emotions, teams can uncover valuable insights about their collaboration patterns, project health, and team dynamics that might not surface in more traditional retrospective formats.

This format creates a safe space for team members to express their feelings about different aspects of their work, creating opportunities for deeper understanding and more meaningful improvements.

Benefits & When to Use

This retrospective template is particularly effective when:

• Teams need to address underlying emotional tensions or concerns
• You want to gain insight into team morale and psychological safety
• The team has experienced significant changes or challenges
• You're looking to understand what motivates and demotivates your team members
• Communication patterns need improvement or emotional intelligence could be strengthened

The emotional focus helps teams identify not just what's working or not working, but why certain aspects of work evoke particular emotions—leading to more targeted and meaningful actions.

How to Run a Joy, Fear, Excitement Retrospective Session

Total time: 30-45 minutes

1. Introduction (3 minutes)

   • Explain the purpose of the retrospective and the three emotional categories
   • Start a Meeting to enable private sticky notes for psychological safety
   • Emphasize that this is about honest emotional responses to work

2. Individual Reflection (10 minutes)

   • Have team members add sticky notes to each of the three areas:
     • Joy: What aspects of the work bring happiness or satisfaction?
     • Fear: What creates anxiety, uncertainty, or concern?
     • Excitement: What generates enthusiasm or energy for the future?

3. Sharing and Discussion (15 minutes)

   • Take turns having each team member reveal and explain their notes
   • Use the participant icon highlighting feature to focus on one person's contributions at a time
   • Encourage questions and clarifications but save deeper discussion for the next phase

4. Theme Identification (10 minutes)

   • Group similar notes together to identify patterns
   • Use the Reaction tool to mark themes that resonate with multiple team members
   • Discuss what these emotional patterns reveal about your team and work

5. Action Planning (10 minutes)

   • Brainstorm specific actions to:
     • Preserve and enhance what brings joy
     • Address and mitigate sources of fear
     • Capitalize on what creates excitement
   • Document follow-up actions in the dedicated Actions zone

Tips for a Successful Session

• Create psychological safety: Emphasize that all emotions are valid and sharing feelings is encouraged but optional
• Ask powerful follow-up questions: "What makes this joyful/fearful/exciting for you?" or "How might we increase joy or reduce fear in this area?"
• Balance the discussion: Ensure you spend adequate time on all three emotions, not just focusing on fears
• Look for contrasts: Pay special attention when the same topic appears in different emotional categories for different team members
• Connect to concrete actions: Ensure that emotional insights lead to tangible improvements
• Consider anonymity: For teams new to emotional discussions, anonymous submissions can help increase honesty

By exploring these three fundamental emotions, teams can develop greater emotional intelligence, improve collaboration, and create work environments that maximize positive emotions while addressing concerns constructively.