Sad, Mad, Glad Retrospective
The Sad, Mad, Glad retrospective is a simple method to gather emotional feedback about a project or sprint. It encourages team members to share what made them feel sad (disappointed), mad (frustrated), and glad (happy), providing insights into the emotional impact of the work and areas for improvement.
Use this method to quickly gauge the emotional climate of the team and identify potential sources of dissatisfaction or frustration that may be impacting performance.
Solves: Difficulty surfacing underlying emotions, lack of awareness of the emotional impact of work, avoiding difficult conversations.
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Step 1: Introduce the Categories (5 min) - Explain the meaning of each category: Sad (what disappointed you?), Mad (what frustrated you?), and Glad (what made you happy?).
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Step 2: Individual Reflection (10 min) - Each participant silently reflects on the past sprint and writes down their thoughts on sticky notes, one idea per note, for each of the three categories.
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Step 3: Share and Discuss (20 min) - Participants take turns sharing their sticky notes, placing them in the appropriate column. Facilitate a discussion around the key themes and patterns that emerge.
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Step 4: Identify Action Items (15 min) - Based on the discussion, identify specific action items to address the 'Sad' and 'Mad' items, and to reinforce the 'Glad' items.
- Create a safe and supportive environment for sharing potentially negative emotions.
- Encourage participants to be specific and provide examples to support their feedback.
- Focus on understanding the underlying causes of the emotions, not just the emotions themselves.
- Use different prompts within each category to focus the discussion (e.g., 'What made you sad about the communication?', 'What made you mad about the process?', 'What made you glad about the results?').
- Combine the Sad, Mad, Glad with other retrospective techniques, such as dot voting or action planning.