Playable in RetroRally

The 4Ls Retrospective retrospective template

A learning-focused reflection on what the team liked, learned, lacked, and longed for during the sprint.

A practical RetroRally guide · Updated August 2026

Availability: This format is playable inside RetroRally now. The team adds private reflections to its visual board, places up to three private dots across the whole board, discusses the selected signal, and leaves with a chosen, owned action. Contribution authors are hidden by default or named when the host chooses at room creation. Start a free room.

When to use The 4Ls Retrospective

Learning-heavy sprints, onboarding periods, experiments, or delivery with new technology.

When not to use it

The immediate need is incident reconstruction, conflict mediation, or a five-minute pulse check.

Suggested timing

35–50 minutes. Reduce the number of themes before shortening private writing or action design.

Preparation

Create Like, Learn, Lack, and Long For categories.
Explain the difference between Lack and Long For.
Gather any experiment goals or hypotheses reviewed during the sprint.

Exact prompts

What did you like and want to repeat?
What did you learn that changes how we work?
What capability or information did you lack?
What do you long for in the next sprint?

Step-by-step facilitation

Frame the learning — 4 min. Restate what the team was trying to learn or deliver during the period.
Write across the 4Ls — 9 min. Let participants choose the categories that matter rather than requiring four entries each.
Reveal and clarify — 10 min. Group themes while preserving meaningful differences between a missing need and a future aspiration.
Prioritise insight — 6 min. Vote on the learning or gap that should change the next sprint plan.
Design the next test — 10 min. Choose an action that applies the learning and define the result you expect to observe.

Example answers

Liked: early design reviews removed ambiguity.
Learned: the cache fails differently under bulk imports.
Lacked: realistic test accounts.
Longed for: one uninterrupted pairing block each week.

Remote and hybrid adaptations

Publish category definitions in the invitation.
Use private writing and simultaneous voting.
Read every Learn item aloud before prioritising.

Common mistakes

Treating Long For as an unlimited wish list.
Ignoring positive Like items.
Recording a learning without changing any future behaviour.

Turn the discussion into action

Make the action demonstrate that the learning was applied. Link it to an owner and a visible result the team can review at the next retrospective.

Review the action at the start of the next retrospective. Mark it complete, partially complete, or blocked, then use the evidence to decide whether to keep, change, or stop the experiment.

Explore related resources

Compare every retrospective template, browse questions by team situation, or learn how to run the complete meeting.