The Awards Ceremony Retrospective

Roll out the red carpet and prepare your acceptance speeches! The Awards Ceremony retrospective transforms your sprint review into a glamorous Hollywood-style event where your team celebrates completed work while gaining valuable insights about what they've delivered and why. This fun, engaging format helps teams reflect on their work's purpose and impact rather than just checking items off a list.

What Is The Awards Ceremony Retrospective?

The Awards Ceremony retrospective is a creative, metaphor-based retrospective format that frames your team's recent accomplishments through the lens of a prestigious awards show. The activity progresses through four distinctive phases:

  1. The Red Carpet - Where your team categorizes features based on who they were created for
  2. The Awards Ceremony - Where features compete for titles like "The Winner" and "The Golden Raspberry"
  3. Learnings - Where the team discusses insights and potential improvements
  4. The After Party - Where the team celebrates their achievements

This format is particularly effective when teams have completed a significant amount of work or reached a major milestone, providing a refreshing alternative to standard retrospectives.

Benefits & When to Use

Use The Awards Ceremony retrospective when:

  • You've just completed a release or significant body of work
  • Your team needs to reconnect with the purpose behind their tasks
  • You want to understand which features provided the most value
  • Team motivation needs a boost after an intense work period
  • You want to strengthen connections between delivery work and customer/stakeholder needs

This format helps teams:

  • Understand who benefits from their work (customers, marketing, internal teams)
  • Identify which features were most successful and why
  • Recognize challenging work and learn from difficulties
  • Celebrate accomplishments in a fun, engaging way
  • Generate insights that can improve future prioritization decisions

How to Run an Awards Ceremony Retrospective Session

Total time: 45-60 minutes

1. Preparation (5 minutes)

  • Import all recently completed features/stories to the board
    • Pro tip: Drag and drop a CSV file onto the board to quickly import items from your issue tracker
  • Introduce the metaphor and explain each section of the board

2. The Red Carpet (10 minutes)

  • Have the team sort all completed features into categories based on who they were delivered for:
    • Fans (Customers) - Features that directly benefit end users
    • Paparazzi (Marketing) - Features requested by or supporting marketing initiatives
    • Stars (Our Team) - Features that improve internal processes or developer experience
  • Add additional categories if needed for your specific stakeholders

3. The Awards Ceremony (15 minutes)

  • Take on the role of MC and guide the team through nominating features for each award:
    • The Winner - Best feature added to the product; something to highlight
    • The Golden Raspberry - Worst feature or one that didn't meet expectations
    • The Epic/Saga - Most complex or challenging feature to implement
  • Run a voting round for each award category to identify winners
  • Discuss why certain features won their categories

4. Learnings & Actions (10 minutes)

  • Facilitate a discussion around key insights:
    • What made the best feature successful?
    • Why did the worst feature struggle?
    • What could we improve about how we handle complex work?
  • Capture specific action items for future sprints

5. The After Party (5 minutes)

  • Ask the team how they want to celebrate their achievements
  • Use this time to end on a positive note and recognize the team's hard work

Tips for a Successful Session

  • Balance the categories: If you notice an imbalance in who your features are serving, discuss whether your backlog needs rebalancing
  • Keep it light: Maintain the awards show atmosphere with humor and playfulness
  • Ask follow-up questions: When a feature "wins" an award, ask why it was nominated and what can be learned
  • Compare and contrast: Ask what happened with the best feature that didn't happen with the worst
  • Make it visual: Use the emoji reactions in the After Party section to gauge team mood
  • Connect to future work: Link insights from this session to upcoming sprint planning
  • Add your own award categories: Feel free to create additional awards that fit your team's specific situation

By transforming retrospection into celebration, The Awards Ceremony helps teams connect their daily work to larger goals while creating memorable, actionable insights that improve future delivery.

Use this template