Color code dots
It lasts 5 to 20 minutes. Its value lies in adding the emotional dimension to the map of sprint events: not only what happened, but how the team experienced it.
How to apply it
- Once all the events have been placed on the timeline and a first joint analysis has been done, each person is given seven to ten sticky notes in two colors.
- The facilitator explains what state each color represents. A common convention: yellow = high energy / positive; blue = low energy / negative. The facilitator can adapt the colors and their meaning to the team's context.
- Each person places a sticky note of the corresponding color on each event, according to how they experienced that moment. If their energy was low during event X, they place the blue sticky note; if it was high, the yellow one.
- The team looks at the combined result and discusses the patterns that emerge.
How to read the results
The visual reading of the result is what gives the technique its value:
- An event with mostly high-energy sticky notes: it was a positive moment for the team. It is worth asking what made it so and how to repeat it.
- An event with mostly low-energy sticky notes: it was a difficult moment. It is a candidate for exploration in the next phase of the retrospective.
- An event with mixed sticky notes: the team experienced it in very different ways. It deserves a conversation: why did some experience it well and others not?
Variants
Colored dots can be used to indicate high or low energy, but also to rate events as positive or negative, or to mark which ones each person considers most relevant to address. The variant depends on the goal of the session.
In remote teams
In a digital format, tools such as Miro or FigJam can be used, where each person adds colored notes or emoji reactions to the events on the timeline. The visual result is equivalent to the physical one.
Common mistake
Using Color code dots without Timeline. The technique works as a complement to an already built timeline: the colors provide emotional information about events that have already been identified. If it is used in isolation, without the context of what happened during the sprint, the colors have nothing to anchor to and the activity loses its diagnostic function.
Resources
🔧 Diseñar una retrospectiva [Designing a Retrospective] (in Spanish)Template · Scrum Manager
📄 Segunda fase de una retrospectiva: en busca de la mejora continua [Second Phase of a Retrospective: In Search of Continuous Improvement] (in Spanish)Scrum Manager Blog · Aug 2023
References
- Derby, Esther; Larsen, Diana. (2006). Agile Retrospectives: Making Good Teams Great. Pragmatic Bookshelf.
See also
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